Book of Revels
by Laryna6
Summary: Fuyutsuki listens to his conscience after Yui is absorbed and reveals the truth about Second Impact, the angels and SEELE's crimes. Shinji grows up among people who know his parents are monsters and Tabris grows up among people, period. With the other angels defeated and SEELE overthrown by their own pawn, can the world overcome the hatred left behind by Second Impact?
1. Into the World

_Wow, this has a plot! Well, not that _Lilim _doesn't, but the focus is my attempt to write an ordinary slashfic. And _The Cat Who Walks Through Walls _definitely has a plot, but right now I'm treating it like a slice of life because I have other epics to finish and I'm waiting on the movies to do the battle choreography and see what other ideas they give me._

_And really, I just wanted to write one specific scene because I saw this one game vid and went wow, that _would _be a required secondary skill for someone in the uncanny valley, huh…_

_I needed a viewpoint character. He'll be gone after this chapter._

* * *

The television over the bar remained tuned to the breaking news. There was supposed to be a soccer game today but for once no one cared, even though sports was one of the things the world clung to in the aftermath of Second Impact. Maybe for the same reason as why the world had gone to war immediately afterwards: they'd lost _so much_, and there was no victory in sight, no recovery to be had. The decay could be slowed, but the dead sea now covered far more than seventy-percent of earth's landmass. Once, algae supplied most of the world's oxygen. Once, seafood was a large part of Spain's diet. Those times were gone, along with so many people. The cradle of life was barren, and it wasn't a question of whether or not the world could recover. It was a question of how long it could endure. So they'd fought over what was left, like a dog over scraps, while all the while?

"_-Several of the leading members of SEELE, the cult responsible for what we now know was _not _a meteor impact, remain at large, among them Lorenz Keel, alleged leader of the cult, and Gendo Ikari, leader of its executive branch GEHIRN, who returned home the day before SEELE agents among the Katsuragi Expedition triggered the event. UN officials ask everyone to please be on the lookout for the following individuals." _

Those _bastards_.

"_As you all know, the conspiracy to wipe out the human race in the belief this would merge us into a mass-mind was revealed thanks to the heroic efforts of Professor Fuyutsuki, who was invited into the group by two of his former graduate students, Gendo Ikari and the deceased Yui Ikari, who is believed to have merged herself with the 'Eva' constructed from the lower half of the 'Lilith' entity. According to the cult's teachings, this would have eventually allowed her to achieve godhood. The surviving Dr. Ikari made no effort to take his son Shinji Ikari with him when he fled, and rather disturbing documents have been found detailing his plans for his son's future, essentially using him as a human sacrifice to trigger the so-called 'Third Impact.' Their child is now under the care of Professor Fuyutsuki, along with Miss Misato Katsuragi, who was kept imprisoned by the group to avoid leaks of her eyewitness account of the so-called Second Impact."_

The TV once again showed the now-iconic images of the crying child clinging to the Professor's coat – what a sick bitch that Yui was, feeding herself to that monster while that little kid was there _to _scar him for life – and the fourteen-year-old Misato being led outside by UN special forces troops, blinking at daylight she hadn't seen in years.

"We take you now to live coverage of the second public report of the scientific team formed to study SEELE's research and the so-called 'angels,' who some are already calling the Abominations."

"So there are a total of eighteen of these entities?" one of the clamoring mass of reporters asked.

"According to Seele's numbering system, yes. However, their files refer to humanity as the 'Eighteenth Angel,' the 'Lilim,' which I'm told is actually the name of a kind of succubus, so unless everyone is having _that _much more sex than I am…" That managed to get a few chuckles, but this was a serious matter. "They call the entity that triggered Second Impact 'Adam' despite the fact that the 'Lilith' entity, the so-called 'Second Angel,' is actually the progenitor of mankind. Since Lilith in mythology is the mother of monsters, it would make a lot more sense if we reversed the two. Or maybe _they_ reversed the two, although I'm not in a position to speculate on whether or not SEELE were Satanists. Whatever we end up calling the progenitor found at the South Pole, it _had _spawned fourteen times before SEELE got their hands on it. In addition to carving parts from it to use for the Eva units, they were also able to trigger it to conceive an additional entity by fertilizing it with human DNA. That entity's birth is what set off Second Impact."

He clearly found the whole idea and the means as distasteful as the audience did. "The good news is that as far as we can tell, SEELE believes that the progenitor was weakened enough by the energy released by Second Impact that they won't be able to use it to produce more abominations. The bad news is that as long as the original entity remains in their hands it's still theoretically possible that they could create more. Since they believe that it is necessary to have one of the spawn of this entity fuse with _humanity's _progenitor for them to attain their nirvana or whatever, it would obviously be in their interests to do so. The _ugly _news is that the one they artificially created not only took on human form, but it's already learned to understand our language, and they've tested and confirmed its ability to infiltrate and control not just people, but computers, even entire networks. We've already advised the UN that _nothing _stored on computer, except in physically isolated systems with no networking capabilities, can be considered secure. We're not certain, but in addition to leaks from compromised government officials, it's possible SEELE's leaders have been able to avoid the search so well, even taking the Antarctic entity and a lot of important equipment with them, because they are using the entity they've designated 'Tabris, the seventeenth angel,' to monitor our search efforts."

That caused a lot of murmuring in the crowd.

"The real reason SEELE put so much funding into the super-secure MAGI system was to make sure that the original fourteen spawned abominations, who are _not _under SEELE's control, weren't able to take control of the defenses they planned to use to ensure that Third Impact took place on _their _terms. As we know, SEELE planned to masquerade as humanity's saviors from the threat of the angels, all the while just waiting until the rogue abominations had been eliminated before using the one they created to absorb us and all of Earth's biomass into a single mass entity, leaving behind a dead and sterile planet. However, the fourteen 'second-generation' abominations are still a threat. If they cause Third Impact, instead of humanity being merged into the mass mind, SEELE believed that we would be converted into raw biomass just like every other lifeform on the planet. They will also seek out not our progenitor but their own, the one SEELE still has in their custody. The UN is already reviewing GEHIRN's plans for the defense of our own progenitor, but as long as SEELE remains at large, if one of the rogue abominations finds them before we do…" Bye bye human race. "We're still trying to sort through all this data, and figure out how much of SEELE's traditions and prophecies are standard cultish nonsense and how much is valid information that might be useful in combating these threats. The most important thing right now is to locate the remaining members of SEELE, and please, please remember that we need them _alive_. I know: I wish I was out there too, my family lived in New York, but we _need_ the information they have if we're going to save what's left of our world." So no lynching, please.

"I'm sure you've all heard this before, but use extreme caution. In addition to SEELE's trained fanatics, there's the Tabris entity. It looks harmless," like a child, even if not _quite_, even if the grey tint in that hair and skin wasn't caused by any human pigment, "but as of yet we have no functional weapon in our arsenal that could so much as scratch it, although fortunately for us the rogue abominations are weaker. Taking off and N2ing it from orbit most likely won't work either, and it will only grow more dangerous as it learns more about its abilities. According to SEELE's readings, the Tabris entity _is _capable of the kind of power surge that caused the Antarctic Incident. Do _not, _I repeat, do _not, _under any circumstances, provoke it."

The image in the corner of the screen expanded now, showing those deep red eyes, that distant expression that looked more like the creature wasn't bothering to make an expression or hadn't learned any yet. Human babies automatically smiled and mimicked expressions. A glowing force-field surrounded the creature, that wore a white smock that seemed to mimic an angel's robes instead of, or as well as, being something easy to boil and bleach sterile. The bracelet around one wrist was plastic: hospital wear, lab wear, an experimental creature.

"Creepy looking thing," one of the bargoers said, the statement followed by a chorus of agreement from the crowd.

"If we're lucky, the Tabris entity may die of natural causes: even though the entities contain coded information very similar to human DNA, they aren't anything that evolved on this world, so they aren't adapted to handle Earth's other life forms. I know this sounds like something out of _War of the Worlds_, but according to SEELE it has a weak immune system and they were planning to restrict it to the labs and gradually introduce it to normal viruses, bacteria and allergens over a period of several years before risking sending it into the outside world even _with _the best antibiotics, antivirals and immune booster medications available. It also has a lot of allergies, including a byproduct of digesting animal tissue. It's not that it _couldn't _consume meat, it would just have to break it down into LCL before absorbing it. Since humans are protected by what SEELE calls AT fields, unlike other biomass, we're the last things on earth it would go after if it was hungry." Thank goodness. "SEELE seems confident they can control it: we're hoping there's a reason for this other than blind faith in their prophecies. Still, at the moment the entity is under human control, so it may be possible to get control of it away from SEELE and dispose of it in a fairly safe manner: we're investigating that as well. We're focusing on the Tabris entity for now because we have every reason to believe that the others are dormant, and will remain that way for at least ten years. Again, none of the others are an immediate threat: once the remaining cultists and the Tabris entity are rounded up, the UN will begin preparing for their arrival, but we'll be able to relax for now."

"That was off a teleprompter." Definitely.

"Or cue cards," an old man snorted. "Reassure the populace, just like always." Since the wars, since Second Impact. "One good thing about this, it's got everyone pointed in the same direction."

"Until the finger-pointing starts." A younger man with sandy hair and one leg looked down into his wine. "The UN will want to blame Germany and Japan, since that's where most of this happened. Germany and Japan can point to how thoroughly penetrated the UN was. No matter what happens, it'll destabilize the world again. I'm safely out of it," with his leg blown off, "but war will start up somewhere in a few months, you can count on it, and not against SEELE. Although both sides will probably claim it is."

There was just as much of a hum of agreement as there'd been about the little abomination, only darker and bitterer. The flood of refugees into their land had started another war for the independence of this region, and conscription had been damn near universal here, since Spain wanted the UN to take away all the able-bodied natives and more hot-blooded Spaniards in the name of 'settling things peacefully.' It had gotten to the point that Simon, who settled here after walking what was left of El Camino de Santiago after losing his leg and getting discharged had been able to find a lot of odd jobs to do that required upper body strength and someone who was clearly a foreigner and thus probably not on either side, since just hiring someone from either race could be viewed as a sign of partisanship. After the men came back, or what was left of them, he'd ended up making more money than before as what amounted to the village's physical & occupational therapist, since he had a stubborn streak a mile wide and hadn't let losing his leg slow him down that much at all.

"They're not going to find it," Mayor Rosa told them, shaking her head with its long fall of black hair. "Did you hear him? That red poison is like mother's milk to these things, and no cold virus would get to it in the middle of the dead sea! All they need to do is lock it in a chest and throw it overboard with an anchor, and we'll never find it until it wants to be found. Just like the others. We're in the end of days, didn't I say it? Seas turned to blood and all."

"Dear, I think you've had enough," the bartender told her.

"Meetings, meetings, the French take advantage of the fact I'm up till late at night but won't let me have a chance for even a little siesta to make up for it! This is the first evening I've had withou-" her cell phone rang. "Drat. See you after you fall asleep, dear."

"Well, so much for getting more news from her." Sites with religious significance were getting more thoroughly searched than other places, and there were lots of little nooks and crannies up in the mountains. All the towns along the Camino were used to looking for lost tourists, so the UN was calling on their knowledge of the area.

The searchers hadn't had a chance for a siesta either, and Second Impact's eternal scorching summer made not skipping the hottest part of the day even worse, so even though they wanted to get caught up on the news they cleared out far earlier than they normally would have, Simon adroitly making his way home on foot, to an old house a few hills over, one of many summer homes that suddenly didn't have owners anymore after Second Impact.

After locking the door behind him and putting on his indoor shoe and cane pad, he turned on the TV to watch the news for awhile longer before going to bed.

Where he lifted up the mattress to pull on what looked like an ordinary screw to make part of the floor rise up, revealing stars under quite a thick level of soundproofing material attached to the floorboards.

It didn't bother him that when everything had resealed itself behind him and he'd gone through two more barriers before turning on the light he found the child reading in the darkness. If anything it made the twenty-seven year old, who had joined the UN forces before Second Impact, smile. Second Impact had made the world aware that war was happening, made it happen in places that had ordered the deaths of people in poorer countries and considered themselves heroic while they lived in peacetime, but if anything it had lessened man's inhumanity to man.

After seeing too many six-year-old sex slaves, victims of famines inflicted on them by warlords or dictators, too many child killers and killers of children, when someone had come to him and asked, what if it was possible to end war forever? He'd asked where he signed up for _that_.

"You don't need to keep the light off, you know. There's a separate generator, so the power use won't show up anywhere," he told the little angel, ruffling his pale hair as the small child looked up at him from the book it had open in front of it. Chinese, it looked like. "You're safe here." This was one of SEELE's oldest treasure troves, fit to hold its most precious treasure. "And didn't I tell you that you could listen to music?"

"I am," the child said, blinking at him, and when Simon was within a few feet of the speakers he could make it out.

"Well, I'm not going to tell you to listen to it at the volume normal people listen to it at." Provided that was the real reason. "But you should make yourself comfortable." Once again the bed didn't look slept in: was he really too old to need to sleep anymore or was he just nervous after being taken away from a familiar environment? "You did take your pills, yes?" 'At bedtime' didn't help when the child didn't go to bed.

Tabris nodded and stood up, holding up his arms. Since it was a little difficult for Simon to pick him up, instead he lowered himself to the ground. The angel was an affectionate little thing, and he was supposed to get exposed to outside contaminants, just in small regular doses. Like, say, getting covered in road dust before his bath

This treasure trove was a small one, a cave used to hold rituals that had been expanded and upgraded again and again, until the hacienda above was burnt down and SEELE decided to replace it with a rather forgettable modern (at the time) building. The need to store perishable components meant it had an extensive freezer, and it also had a large bathtub for purification.

"Now promise me you aren't falling asleep in the tub," he told the boy as he turned the taps to fill it up with hot water. Tabris had promised before, but angel or not he was a little boy.

"I promise," Tabris said, and started walking back.

"Where are you going."

"To turn the music up now."

Oh? That was new. Once Tabris was in the bath he tended to just sit there and smile with his eyes closed until the water got cold or someone made him get out. Simon knew how good soaking in hot water could feel, but it wasn't as though he was straining any muscles down here, was he? It was the only time the boy wasn't looking at something or doing something: he could sit quietly, if the situation called for it, but he would still be looking at people, or thinking.

"Um!" The angel said happily as Simon leaned against the wall to lift him up and dip his toes in the bath. He was no weight at all: quite literally, in fact. The walls of the tub were high enough that if he couldn't levitate, Simon wouldn't have dared leave him in it unsupervised.

"So that's a good temperature?"

Tabris smiled at him, wiggling his toes, so that was a definite yes. Or more of a 'Lower me yesplease?'

Simon obligingly lowered him down, although it was more like pushing him down, the angel staying at the height Simon's hands held him at, perhaps out of habit, or because it was part of the ritual?

There was a sound that was likely the kid's equivalent of, "Mmm," when he was in up to his neck, sitting cross-legged on the bench part of the tub. Eyes closed, head tilted back and brain off except for contentedness.

It made him wonder, "Hey, would you like to be in the ocean? I guess you'd have to come out to study." Weren't there caves that only had underwater entrances?

The boy opened his eyes and blinked up at him. "The temperatures are variable, but is it this warm anywhere? There's vents, but it might take awhile to swim there from the surface without using more power than I'm allowed to…" That might be a problem. "It's strange that this water is clear," he told Simon, waving his hand under the surface. "That's fun. I can see through it with my eyes," he said, as though that was very unexpected.

"Have you ever been in the ocean?"

"No, but there are things I know, like that liquid is normally not like this. Not all of us would like the ocean, though. And heat is good." He'd asked for more heat a lot at the first place, but it bothered the nice ones to put him in water that would hurt a Lilim.

Simon looked at him curiously. "Are you charging your batteries or something? Don't you have an infinite power source?" While Tabris absorbing energy from hot water instead of sunlight would explain a lot, it didn't quite fit the facts.

"It's a good place to be and it feels good." Tabris looked a little puzzled. Wasn't that all that was necessary? "Lorenz," His Holiness Lorenz or Chairmen Keel to people who weren't little messiahs, "thought it was like the way all Lilim long to return to the womb, to the time before they were separate beings who experienced suffering and strife. Maybe it's a bit like that? A womb is a good place for Lilim to be while they grow. I don't have to be in water the way you need to be in a womb, I just like it," he said, shifting now to dangle his feet down off the edge of the bench, in the deeper water. "But wind is nice too. It makes more sounds."

"I know." Tabris had already told him about the sound he'd heard on the trip that was wind-through-pines.

"They're sending someone to help me learn how to disguise myself tomorrow, so I want to take an extra long bath, because after that I might wash stuff off," the angel told him now, regretting the loss of the several-hour-long baths but excited that he might be able to go outside, if only to travel to the next hiding place at some point in the future. "I've read a lot about it online, and watched videos, but that's not the same as doing it and inventing solutions to problems. I have a unique coloring, too, and it has to blend so it's not obvious. It's an art. It's not as good for the soul as singing is, but it's a way that Lilim communicate, how they show themselves to each other."

"So you want to learn make-up, all that kind of stuff?" Well, he was young enough that playing dress-up should sound fun, really, and Simon remembered war paint and Halloween facepaint.

The little angel grinned up at him, and it was hard not to smile back. "Lilim are always alone. That's such a painful existence, isn't it? But while I'm here, you have someone to come home to and can forget that for awhile, even if before very long I'll be gone and you'll be lonely again. It's my purpose to take that suffering away from you, so that you'll never be lonely again, never have to return to the pain that is your natural state of existence as Lilim, but I should start now, shouldn't I? Even if I have to return Lilim to pain again when I go away, I should make them happy while I'm there, as thanks for giving me a home too. If I can go outside, then I can meet more people and make their lives less painful for awhile too." Even if he'd be leaving those new friends behind when he moved on, while Lilim lived such brief lives trapped in their own heads they would always lose everyone they met, always return to being alone and have to seek out new companionship.

"And that's your own idea, isn't it?" Because it wasn't safe for the little angel to be interacting with others in an uncontrolled manner. Just thinking about it made him check his gun. Forget what would happen if they found him, how this innocent would react to being called a monster: kids were cruel to each other, and adults could be even more cruel. "That's sweet of you," but over Simon's dead body, frankly. The boy would be leaving his custody at some point, and then he'd lose all say in the matter, but… oh, thank goodness. "You need to build up your immune system for a few years first, alright?"

Tabris shook his head, smiling reassuringly. "Don't worry. I won't die and let all of you stay all alone until you die." He wouldn't let them suffer for nothing like that.

* * *

_Re. speech patterns: even if humans know someone is an angel, they see kid, they treat it like kid and talk to it with the little words. Mostly, which is why the formality of his tone wavers. Since Tabris is reading things in lots of different dialects in different languages that have changed over time, he has languages classified into a lot of different subtypes. For instance, there's 'science paper jargon English,' as opposed to adult-to-adult casual speech, American vs. British English, then there's formal in reports and such… and then there's how people talk to him and how they expect him to respond. He's been there long enough that he's mostly learned to talk to Simon how Simon talks to him, as opposed to how people talk, even to kids, when they're in a lab. _

_I was thinking of the way he provides a translation for Shinji. Since he says things like 'singing is good for the soul,' and 'heart of glass,' I think that his fondness for song will make his 'default' speech pattern get more poetic over time, so his options would be dumbing it down or translating things people don't get, yet once how he himself talks becomes… Well, the term is 'self-expression.' _

_Some of the things that seem semi-random that he says in the anime basically boil down to, 'Life is pain, since you're doomed to be alone, all you can do is forget it for awhile and go on despite that pain, with hope for happiness.' He doesn't see that he's being cruel to Shinji by befriending him and then dying because as he understands it (raised by SEELE), that's life. _Every _Lilim relationship ends and it is painful. That's been Shinji's life experience, too. It ends up boiling down to, really, 'Life sucks and then you die, your loved ones die too, so get used to it and don't let it stop you.' Lilim need the future because they can strive for happiness, even though their default is pain. Kaworu says he doesn't need the future the way Lilim do because he can be happy in the now, whereas if humanity is wiped out, thousands of years of striving will have been for nothing. _

_However, this is a younger Kaworu, who thinks that pain is bad (obviously it is, it hurts), and people want him to save them from it, so that is obviously what he should do. It would be interesting to write the process of him learning over time that humans can recover from heartbreak and grow stronger for it, transforming that pain into art and letting their own suffering teach them to be more considerate of others, until he eventually realizes that complementation, the loss of individuality and suffering would not be blessed relief for the Lilim, the triumph over pain they have been waiting and working for, but it would be negation, death, defeat. A surrender to pain and loneliness, giving up everything they've fought for._

_The concept that humans are _always _going forward past heartbreak, despite suffering, over the bodies of others. So Shinji killing him instead of wanting Instrumentality becomes an example of how humanity can and should live: Shinji becomes proof of the philosophy that human individuality and growth are worth dying for, despite all the war, death and pain along the way. _

_What Kaworu was born for, in Second Impact, was to give humanity the future SEELE thought the human race should want. By meeting Shinji and dying for him, he gives humanity not an end in instrumentality, but _a future_. _

_It's interesting to think about how the Eva narrative would have been disrupted if everyone knew that Instrumentality and Complementation were possibilities, the significance of the Evas and Shinji. Not to mention that the planet's dying. Makes me think of X1999, where the seven angels are the ones trying to save the planet and the seven seals, the ones symbolized with devil wings, are the ones trying to save humanity. Godhood or entropic death over a more foreseeable future? There's going to be war over it, but in this verse, it wouldn't be a secret war. For instance, destroying Lilith means destroying humanity, so who keeps her safe? Wouldn't SEELE get a lot of new believers as well as haters? Or people who think that Second Impact was wrong, but it wrecked the planet so now there are only a few options left and theirs is the least bad? Shinji and Tabris: who's the Christ-child and who's the Anti-Christ? They're both saviors and destroyers. _

_Ends up very Legacy of Kain, if one thinks about it._


	2. First Day of School

"Fuyutsuki, Shinji," the teacher read next.

"Here," he said, since there was no getting around it. Of course everyone in his new class in Tokyo-3 had recognized him. You would have to live under a rock not to, and this school was for potential pilots. So yes, everyone knew he was really Shinji Ikari, that he was a pilot because his mother wanted to destroy the world in order to become a god and sacrificed herself to possess part of humanity's progenitor, the true Adam called Lilith forged into a war machine, all of that.

At least Asuka's mother had only _gone _crazy and homicidal, she wasn't crazy and genocidal all along.

_I must not try to hide behind my textbook, I must not try to hide behind my textbook… _

After what happened to Asuka's mom, the UN had started strictly guarding Evas to keep people who wanted their children to have the glory (or wanted themselves to be remembered for their noble sacrifice) from getting at them. When Naoko Akagi volunteered, after the Magi were complete, no one cared since she'd knowingly worked for GEHIRN. But her daughter's best sync ratio was pitiful compared to Shinji's the first time he let them push him into Eva 01, and then the world discovered that the children born after the Rapture were contaminated by the fallout.

Just a little bit closer to angels. A little bit. Except for people whose parents worked for SEELE, like Shinji and Asuka, and people who were in the wrong place at the wrong time. And it was those with the most contamination who made the best pilots. That was why his sister could pilot: Misato had been at Ground Zero.

Misato Katsuragi (she wouldn't let anyone blame that name for the Rapture) wasn't an adult when she was freed, but she'd insisted on becoming a pilot, being treated like a soldier. She was going to avenge her (once-hated, she'd confessed to him once to try to make him feel less bad about his own parents) father, destroy all of those responsible for Third Impact: SEELE, Adam, Tabris.

His adoptive father was the hero who managed to break through the conspiracy's wall of silence after infiltrating it. His adoptive sister was the hero who used Eva 00's AT field to storm fortresses, defeat rebel armies and battle Tabris alongside the computer genius Ritsuko and her boyfriend the young and dashing Special Investigator Ryoji, with his incredible success rate tracking down SEELE cultist compounds and Tabris itself. There were already movies and anime with characters clearly inspired by them.

But for the past two years, Misato's sync ration with Unit 00 had been just that: zero. This was the year the abominations were supposed to attack Tokyo-3, the citadel that now held both Adam and Lilith. Born of an international effort yadda yadda yadda.

Shinji could quote the 'we're going to survive this' propaganda in his sleep, he'd heard it so many times.

And finally, Shinji Ikari! Son of the Whore of Babylon and SEELE's Dragon, known for his many-headed plots and all the new converts to SEELE he left in his wake. Either humanity's champion (unless he betrays us all) or the Anti-Christ, who seeks to rally the world to serve him to oppose the true messiah, the angelic child Tabris!

So of course they were staring. It didn't make him want to run away any less.

Not five minutes past the bell and he already knew that when he got home he was going to throw himself at his Dad's feet and beg, "Please, can't I just be home-schooled? I miss being home-schooled! I mean, aren't I in even more danger from assassins now?" If he was so irreplaceable a pilot, then why did he have to be here?

If he opened his eyes wide, Dad would start to mumble and consider caving. Misato called it the Yui Eyes, since Dad blamed himself for Yui marrying Gendo and becoming a crazy cultist.

Which was why Misato would be there, although ostensibly she, Ryoji, their adoptive daughter Asuka and Ritsuko would be there for a 'happy first day of normal school' celebration for Shinji. Of course Asuka would tell them _all _about how it went.

All these people looking at him were making his skin crawl, after years of training in recognizing and avoiding crazies of all stripes. He was a public figure, so people looked at him, but people looking at him could mean they were among those who wanted him dead, and a subset of those might have guns or knives or more exotic weapons.

_Must not run away. Must not run away. Must not run and hide behind Misato so _she_ can kick their asses. She _likes _kicking asses._

What made it even more embarrassing was that he was better than hand-to-hand than Misato, because he'd started earlier. Better in the training ring, anyway. Unless it was Asuka. Then he froze up, just like in the real world.

Just like how Shinji would freeze up after school, and sit there paralyzed with embarrassment as Misato told him, "See? That didn't go so bad?" While she and everyone else laughed at Asuka's play-by-play of how bad it really had been.

"Fuyutsuki, Rei?"

"Present," Rei stated calmly.

Then there was the presence of his mother's clone, his father and SEELE's fucked up attempt to bioengineer themselves a pilot if they'd managed to make themselves an Eva and/or a mate for Tabris, Shinji and his Dad didn't even know and didn't want to. Misato captured her and brought her home with her five years ago. The fact that she and Shinji could practically be twins if it weren't for the hair, the eyes and the fact Rei was very clearly _not human_ really hadn't helped Shinji's issues with his birth family.

_Make friends with her, Misato says. Adam only has one tentacle that's really more of a tail, so how bad can it be, she says._

Fortunately, she'd spent most of those five years in the labs, for her health & everyone else's, and was officially Ritsuko's problem. At least Shinji knew that he wasn't the only one creeped out by Rei: these were the things they were fighting, and they wanted to make one a pilot? Wanted to use Tabris Mk. II to replace _Misato _as Unit 00's pilot?

Well, no. The one the world was counting on to replace Misato was him. The smart money was on Rei going to the Dark Side, revealing that she'd been on it all along or turning into a full abomination/being brainwashed when some day came and hidden mental or genetic programming activated or whatever.

Nor was it really like they were counting on him. He was just the best they had, and wasn't that depressing? While Asuka thought he enjoyed the attention and hated him for it. After all, _she _was Misato's adoptive daughter, wasn't she? If anything, the epic duel of good vs. evil would be her versus the son of the Ikaris, since Lorenz Keel hadn't reproduced, luckily for the nonexistent kids.

Lucky bastards.

Why hadn't anyone realized that his mom had a god complex when she named him Shinji? True God? In the wake of the Rapture?

_Must not headdesk hard enough to hopefully knock myself out, either. _

Make it to second period, he told himself. Just make it through second period, since Asuka would certainly be following him on the way to it, or if he asked for a bathroom break. She should start to be more complacent, or too busy laughing at his discomfort, to pay close enough attention to catch him making a break for it after second period was over.

After all, this was his first day. Two periods was good for a first step, right?

_Really should not run away, but… Screw it, I'm out of here._

Thus it was that Special Inspector Kaji, sitting in his office chain-smoking in the certain knowledge that he wasn't going to live long enough for lung cancer to kill him, got a phone call from what his government call tracer identified as a payphone.

"Yes?" he answered carefully.

"Get me out of here or I'll tell Misato her fans were able to steal the dirty laundry because you were distracted by two of the female ones making out."

"I'll be there in a second," Kaji said, terminating the call and downloading the location data from his desktop to his smartphone. Aww, and little Shinji thought he wasn't growing up.

Cruising along in his convertible watching the geofront go by, Kaji looked over at Shinji and asked, "Hey, what's with that face?"

"I ran away."

"You broke out of a secure facility, my man. Give me five," Kaji said, taking the hand that wasn't holding his cigarette out the window to get rid of the ash and holding it up for Shinji.

"_Hands on the wheel!_" Shinji yelled, grabbing it himself.

"Look," Kaji said after his little bro avoided the guard robot at the last second (hey, both of them needed to stay in practice, even if there really was no defensive driving course like, oh, just about any city Misato was fighting in), "I know how it is. Paranoia's part of my job description and maybe Misato was a little overprotective after that nice little old lady turned out to be a nun with a machine gun. If you die, we're in big trouble. You're allowed to be a little worried about people trying to kill you. Crowds, especially crowds full of trained potential opponents?" There wasn't one kid at that school who couldn't shoot: once the Marduk Report identified them they were conscripts, UN property, potential defenders of the human race. "And if all of them don't wish they could go back in time and kill your parents, then I let a few moles escape my background checks. You need to give it time. Try to make some friends. Give them a chance to get to know you."

"For what, a useless coward-Duck!"

Kaji swerved to avoid the endangered waterfowl – all migratory waterfowl were endangered, thanks to LCL. The geofront was a huge sanctuary for species that needed space but couldn't be allowed to travel. "There, you see? That's what a trained eye does for you."

"That's what driving with Misato did to me."

"That's what I said." Kaji leaned back. "Look, we both know that this isn't about school. Although if you let your guard down, it soon will be." They couldn't afford Shinji getting any injuries that would take him out of action. "You can ease into the normal classroom environment, and if Asuka says otherwise that's just because she's annoyed Misato, Rits and I are using it as free daycare. You're focusing on your classmates so you don't need to think about the abominations. Well, the good news is that Rits and the Professor checked their calculations again, and…"

The sirens turned on.

The ground shook.

The sirens turned off.

"The first abomination is enough of a pussy that they should be able to take it with N2 missiles as soon as it shows up on the screen," Kaji continued. Yep, that was his girls. "Now come on, help me tip my car right side-up. That way, we can get to NERV before Asuka does, and we'll just say I finally managed to narrow down the date of the attack a little too late to get you a command room seat."

"Asuka will be mad."

"Not if I hint that it's actually just an excuse and I picked you up because I was worried about Misato's little bro."

"So now pitying me is your excuse for skipping work?"

"Exactly. Same as tomorrow when I bring you to see what's left of the angel before they load onto the transport." They were going to do the full analysis while the remains were safely on their way out of Tokyo-3 to another lab, just in case. "So you can see that they're not so tough after all. Come on, we missed the play but we can still go watch the slow-motion replays."


	3. Enemies Are Not Very Friendly

_By request of Djibrielshadow, who I still owe several thousand words of fic because of all the Rapture fanart she drew, we interrupt the originally scheduled chapter to bring you The Adventures of ChibiTabris (either the first or second cutest lil eldritch abomination in the Evaverse - this fic's Ritsuko would say the second), Eva Pilot Misato & Friends._

* * *

As the UN commandos, aided by a local force that knew how to navigate these mountains, began their silent trek towards the monastery that had turned out to be a SEELE fortress buried deeply in the Himalayas they heard, "_Sleep_."

Smiling with relief that it had gone well this time and no one had fallen down very far or resisted long enough to fire a shot, much less one that ended up hitting one of their friends because they couldn't hold their gun up or focus well enough, Tabris floated down. That had happened once and he'd felt absolutely awful about it, awful enough to heal the wound and wake the victim up to apologize right away. According to Lorenz the poor soldier had been kept in a UN lab for months under biohazard containment, which just made Tabris more determined not to let it happen again.

At least Tabris had realized that he should use his AT field to _stop _bullets instead of just forming it into a mimic of a solid surface and letting them ricochet during one of his first training sessions in the lab. What if a Lilim was hit?

They were so fragile, and they still kept worrying about him. The head of the guards here had tried to insist that Tabris let him handle small forces like this, but no, what if they got hurt? No, worse than hurt: injuries could be healed if Tabris got there in time, but what if the Lilim died? A soul doused like a candle, and reanimating a dead body wouldn't call back the same soul.

It was nice of the Lilim to worry about him: most Lilim were very nice, because they experienced so much pain they knew what pain felt like and didn't want others to suffer, but Tabris didn't want them to suffer either.

Their AT fields protected their minds, but after he'd asked one of the doctors to help him learn more about how Lilim worked so he could find a way to make them stop fighting without hurting them, he'd been relieved to discover that there were a few easy ways to knock them out instead of just hitting them with his AT field until they went down or stayed down and then picking them up with it and putting them somewhere else. Lilim could be very stubborn, and that took a long time, time other Lilim could use to get closer to where SEELE's people were and try to hurt them.

Tabris really wished the Lilim would stop trying to hurt each other. They got hurt so easily by accident all the time that he really didn't understand why they thought any more was necessary.

Then there were the names Lilim called SEELE or people they only thought were SEELE, when the Lilim AT field meant they couldn't just show that they were innocent. When Lilim were always isolated and in pain, why did they have to remind them of that pain with cruel words of rejection?

SEELE had hurt Adam, Tabris' father, but when the Lilim were all in so much pain all the time, there was no way Tabris could hate them for it. It was a wrong and terrible thing to do, but Lilim experienced terrible things all the time and if this was the only way they had to make everyone else stop hurting?

He had to turn a few of them over to look at their insignia before finding the person he thought was the commanding officer. That was much harder than putting them to sleep because he had to use his arms and brace himself with his legs, both for exercise and because this way he could feel how they were moving and be sure he wasn't hitting them too hard or pushing them enough that they'd start rolling down the steep slope here. His body was mostly Lilim, so he had to exercise. He'd promised not to just rely on his AT field all the time (although of course he had to keep it up all the time so he didn't get hurt) in exchange for the doctor letting him get away with not sleeping while they were being attacked like this. The doctor gave in when Tabris said that he'd be too worried to sleep anyway, so please?

Satisfied that he'd found the officer and everyone was reasonably secure, Tabris hummed to himself while looking around for a stick.

The way Lilim didn't like contact with others was very strange. Tabris liked being touched much more than he liked being poked with instruments and sticks, but since the Lilim were afraid of Tabris being touched by a stick instead of by him or the light of his soul bothered them less. Since he didn't like bothering them, it didn't bother him at all to spend a bit looking for a stick. Maybe he should just start carrying a stick to poke them away with, so he had one that was sturdy and didn't need to be ground against a rock for a bit to make sure it wasn't sharp?

When he found a stick he was satisfied with, Tabris crouched on a rock as far away from the officer as he could reasonably manage given the length of the stick and leaned forward to nudge him with the stick. It took a couple more careful pokes before Tabris was reasonably sure the officer was waking up. "You must not have been getting very much sleep. I couldn't let you sleep here since it's cold, but maybe I should have taken you back to your base without waking you up. That way you could rest while the other Lilim were making sure you were okay." By this point, Tabris had put enough people to sleep that the UN was reasonably sure he wasn't using encroachment to do it.

The officer pretended to still be asleep, even though Tabris knew the Lilim knew that, "I can hear your heartbeat, so I know you're awake." He'd told them so enough times, since otherwise it made them worry that he was reading their minds or encroaching into their bodies when he knew things about them. "Do you want to wake everyone else up and go home by yourselves, or…"

Tabris paused and whirled around to face the north. "I wish you Lilim wouldn't do things like this." The sound of the incoming rocket gave him plenty of warning to raise his AT field away from his body to protect the sleeping Lilim as well as himself.

The hands he felt around his throat, grabbing him and pushing him down so the Lilim could try to use its weight to put more force on Tabris' neck as the rocket exploded against his AT field didn't bother him at all. They made him turn to smile happily up at the Lilim, because at least the Lilim was willing to touch him. Even if he was trying to kill Tabris, at least it meant he wasn't totally afraid of Tabris, right?

Of course, the officer would have preferred to use his gun or knife, but Tabris took those away before waking the man up. He'd left the officer's nearby just in case a tiger got here before other Lilim did, but everyone else's guns he'd crushed and thrown into another valley. Even though Lilim knew weapons wouldn't help against his AT field, they still felt braver if they had them and were more likely to waste time attacking Tabris just in case it worked.

The Lilim grimaced, frustrated when it felt the AT field at the surface of Tabris' skin, making what should have been a fragile windpipe utterly unbending.

Tabris felt a little bad, because the Lilim must have thought the smile was mocking and that wasn't what he'd meant. It was really sad that Liliim couldn't understand each other at all and got their feelings hurt all the time because of it. "I was smiling because you're brave, not because…" Tabris lost his train of thought when the Lilim stood up, taking Tabris with him and pulled him up in order to twist him around and try to bring the child's head down on the rock Tabris had crouched on as hard as the officer could.

His first reaction was a small questioning sound, because this was new, but then being picked up and whirled around by someone larger made him laugh delightedly. Being held by someone, and coming as close as Lilim could to flying? He liked this!

The Lilim did it again a few more times before giving up on hurting Tabris this way either. When he finally dropped Tabris (still head-first), after Tabris pushed himself up so he could look up at the man he clapped his hands together in delight, looking up at the big man with happy red eyes. "That was fun! Thank you Mr. Lilim." He'd seen the man's name on his insignia, but the Lilim seemed to feel better if he didn't know their names, mostly. If he asked if any of the ones he'd met before were doing okay, he'd get them in trouble. So he just remembered their names, and hoped they could survive until the Promised Day. "I like being picked up, but that was new. It's exciting when it's fast like that." He got to his feet and spun around to demonstrate. "I hope it isn't something that will hurt Lilim all the time, because then they won't want to do it with me at home."

Aww. The Lilim had gone for his gun while the angel was trying to convey that he wasn't angry but happy, so the soldier didn't need to be afraid and they didn't have to fight, really. He blinked at the man, tilting his head to the side while looking at the gun, asking wordlessly what he thought he was going to do with that.

Well, hopefully the Lilim would figure out that fighting him wasn't going to do any good so they might as well be nice before too much longer? They were really angry about all the poor Lilim that died in Second Impact, though.

"You… monster…" the Lilim said, still trying to hurt him. Bare hands if it didn't have weapons, words if hands and rocks wouldn't work.

"If I was a monster, saying that wouldn't hurt my feelings," Tabris pointed out. "It's okay, though, my feelings aren't hurt." He frowned a little and decided to explain what he meant, because Lilim liked to hear things the wrong way when they were angry. "That doesn't mean I'm a monster, it just means that I don't feel the pain of loneliness all the time the way Lilim do, so having a potential friend reject me doesn't hurt. One of the guards said that Lilim don't try to make friends with people who hate them, though, but that just seems backwards. Lilim who are consumed by hatred and pain must need friends the most." He decided not to say that they'd all be friends when complementation happened anyway, since then the Lilim could see that Tabris really wasn't evil, so he didn't have to try to protect the other Lilim from him. "Anyway, you should go home, because it's cold up here. There isn't snow right now," which was disappointing: there would be snow if it weren't for the Eternal Summer, "but it still gets really cold, too cold for Lilim if they're not moving even if they are wearing as many clothes as you are."

The Lilim kept his gun pointed at Tabris, trying to think.

"You were hoping that using the light of my soul to block the rocket might mean it wasn't close to my body too, so you could hurt me then? The light of my soul is… light," something that radiated, "but it's not like ordinary light. It's my soul, my will. I don't want to be hurt, because other Lilim are counting on me to protect them and bring them happiness. So no one can hurt me unless I want to let them, like taking a blood sample, and hurting me wouldn't really make you feel better. Killing people won't do anything but make you Lilim even more alone." Tabris looked at him, not encroaching to feel his emotions because that was rude but looking at what showed of the man's eyes, listening to his heart, things like that. "I'm listening to all the mountains here, so you can't keep me distracted enough that I'll let people sneak past me to attack my home. I know you won't give up, because you Lilim want to stop hurting just as much as my Lilim do and you think killing us will help…"

"Shut up!" the man raged at him, the gun almost trembling in his hands, before he got back control of himself. "You think you're so superior, so invincible: you're not an angel, you're an abomination!"

Angel meant messenger, so he was that, and abomination meant a hated existence, and he was also that to this Lilim, but pointing out any of that wouldn't help. 'Superior' could mean so many different things that they'd just end up arguing about definitions and it wouldn't help at all. "Invincible means someone who cannot be defeated, cannot fail, and I fail a lot, so I'm definitely not invincible. I don't like that Lilim hate me, I don't like that so many Lilim died because I was born, and I wish we were friends, but I can't fix any of it." Not yet: it would take instrumentality, true godhood, to call back all those souls, and Tabris was only a very young Seed of Life. "I want to try, though, so if you really don't want to help or be around me at all, maybe you should go home?" Tabris asked hopefully.

Oblivious to the dirt on his simple white pants and long-sleeved top wrapped in a heavy brocaded robe tied at the waist, (the Lilim felt better if he at least looked like he was warmly dressed) Tabris scooted forward a little. "I want to talk to you, so…" That way the Lilim would at least have a small victory, denying the person he hated something Tabris wanted? "If you promise to go home, I'll let all of them wake up easily, but otherwise I'll make sure they won't wake up for a whole day, so you and other people will be too busy carrying them to safety to try to attack us again." Or Tabris would probably just carry them all back to their base so they'd be safe while they were asleep, after knocking out the officer again too. It scared Lilim who didn't trust him to be held by the light of his soul, especially in midair. "I can't stay out too late, though, or they'll worry." Well, without a good reason, and the people who took care of Tabris really didn't see talking to people who wanted the little angel dead as a good reason. "Even though I don't need to sleep. Especially since the Eva will be here tomorrow at the latest."

He could see how frustrated the Lilim was that Tabris already knew that.

Tabris didn't say he was looking forward to meeting Miss Katsuragi. Well, Colonel Katsuragi, but thinking of her with a military rank felt like bad luck, since it actually was a reason it probably wouldn't go well at all.

Still!

She would have an AT field, so she shouldn't need to be so afraid of him, right? The Lilim who weren't afraid of Tabris were mostly his friends, so maybe she'd be friendlier than the Lilim who were scared?

He wished SEELE hadn't taken her mother after realizing that her exposure to the Rapture meant she might be able to pilot. Tabris already felt the desire to merge with Adam, even if he wasn't going to give in for the sake of all the Lilim, so the desire for parents in Lilim, who felt the pain of loneliness all the time, must be so much stronger.

It didn't seem like the Lilim was going to make up his mind anytime soon, especially since Tabris had given him something else to think about. The UN would want to know how he knew the Eva was coming, even though it wasn't hard. They were bringing up a big cable and all sorts of other equipment to the base in the foothills: Tabris could see that with his own eyes if he flew up high enough. They'd made some attempts to hide the plane carrying the Eva, but it was clear that the Lilim didn't know what they'd need to do in order to trick Tabris yet. Lilim fiddling with data like that got his attention right away, since he was looking for it. SEELE was certain they'd get better at it, especially if Tabris was foolish enough to tell them how he knew, but for now he was just excited that the Eva was coming! And it had an AT field like his! So did the other angels, but he hadn't sensed any of their fields since he woke up. He probably shouldn't have let the Lilim know Tabris knew, but he might think of spies or any number of other things. Tabris definitely didn't want the Lilim to figure out some way of hiding attacks from him, since then people would get killed.

Since the Lilim was thinking, Tabris jumped over to put his stick on top of a big rock and then started flying, since being higher up would make it easier to find more sticks and logs.

"Where do you think you're going?" the Lilim demanded.

"Making a fire. That way, all the Lilim here can stay warm, and the Lilim down in the base can see where you are and come help you carry people, if you don't promise to go back down on your own." Tabris started humming again, since he had something helpful to do. That was a much nicer thing than trying to make friends with a Lilim who really didn't want to even listen, much less make friends.

Although the Eternal Summer meant trees and shrubs were now growing higher up the slope, most of the dead wood was further down, especially in the area where more heat meant the slope wasn't suitable for certain trees and plants anymore. He lifted a trunk and carried it up closer to the fire before breaking it into sections that would fit on the rock, since that way he could get the sawdust. He'd only learned how to make fires the Lilim way last year, and it was fun. Well, mostly the Lilim way: he'd be using the light of his soul to set fire to the wood dust and other kindling.

He focused, first glowing a little more to make it easier and then generating a shield strong enough to warp light in the shape of a lens, concentrating the light the way a scientist had shown him with a magnifying glass. This was a good exercise because it took a stronger AT field to warp light and other particles then Tabris actually needed for just about anything else, and he had to think about how to adjust the angle to make the lens. He was also a lot more willing to do it than most other exercises because it made fire, and fire was pretty.

The people who looked after him had figured out fairly quickly that although Tabris liked reading and learning, especially about Lilim culture, he didn't find his AT field anywhere near as exciting as he did. It was just the light of his soul, a part of him, so it obviously wasn't anywhere near as interesting as other people and the world around him were.

At first when he didn't do exercises his minders got in trouble, but Tabris had gone to Lorenz and said that he was only not doing exercises he didn't need anymore, and he liked the people who looked after him. He wasn't going to let himself be killed before bringing about complementation, but he wasn't going to spend hours being bored without a good reason: it definitely wasn't their fault.

Lorenz was not a very nice Lilim, but he was smarter than most other Lilim. So he'd patted the little angel of free will on the head, told him to sit in the old man's lap, and they'd find ways to make his practices more interesting. He'd also told Tabris' minders to be more open about how they were worried about the little angel, and they wanted to make sure that he could reliably do whatever was necessary to protect himself from whatever, but it was good for Lilim to tell him these things, and this way Tabris could reassure them.

In addition to all the things Lilim had discovered could be done with lasers, Tabris got to light all the candles and fires in the monastery now, which was fun and let him help out other than by telling other Lilim to please go away.

His teachers kept hoping he'd start liking to fight, but this really wasn't fighting. Tabris just felt bad about it because they were trying so hard and it was just really easy for Tabris to stop them from hurting him. He'd considered maybe pretending that they were able to at least make him work to beat them, but when they found out that he was just pretending that would make it even worse, wouldn't it? The UN soldiers kept saying they hated being pitied, especially by an enemy that at least looked like a child.

"Goodbye!" Tabris said when the fire was going okay and he'd pulled up some more wood.


	4. Music Soothes

_Re. the third angel: If a gunshot or long-range laser can be backed by an AT field, than an N2 Missile Massacre fired by an Eva can also be AT field-backed. They would have had Rei do the honors, but it was her first day of school and they are hoping she can make some friends, so Granny Naoko took care of it._

* * *

Professor Fuyutsuki had tried a lot of things to give Misato and Shinji something that they enjoyed, something that would pull them through the tough times. When it came to Misato, the former college professor basically threw up his hands and gave up when the formerly-silent Misato discovered that her prefect coping mechanism was partying, being surrounded by the comforting sound of lots of people while hanging with friends, making noise and moving around. Also, drinking. Shinji, on the other hand, wasn't able to start doing military ops when she was fifteen and he was five. His dad was very busy, and it wasn't a very good idea for Shinji to go outside a lot or make friends, so a lot more effort was put into finding him a hobby.

Martial arts were a given since he would be needed as a pilot, but Shinji hated trying to meditate. He knew how to swim long before Kaji's lessons in how to survive being thrown into the water, oh, fully clothed and with his hands tied. Gardening meant too much time spent outside. Chess required someone to play against and Shinji could barely remember how the horsie moved at that age.

Learning to play the piano was one that his new Dad made him keep doing, since it was a gateway instrument: learning the basics on it would help a musician understand concepts behind a lot of other instruments and how they fit together during performances. The first bit of genuine interest Shinji showed in much of anything after his mother's death was when a string quartet vouched for by his tutor visited.

The future pilot couldn't be allowed on the internet, not with Tabris out there. Free time was time that could be spent moping, so the rhythm of Shinji's days was a certain number of hours spent training, a certain number spent studying and a certain number spent practicing. His various teachers were Shinji's only friends until Misato started bringing home hers, but Ritsuko and later Kaji were still about a decade older than Shinji: young enough to play with him, but partially out of pity.

By the time he was fourteen, Shinji's music instructor was a retired legend who had moved all the way from France to Tokyo-3 just to teach Shinji: the one time Shinji was ever actually grateful for being a public figure. Shinji never really would believe that actually, he was that good.

The Maestro had a handful of other students, most of who had to quit taking lessons from him because of the time and expense of flying even a private family jet all the way to Japan. He was getting older, so he took on fewer and fewer students and by the year the abominations attacked the only students he had were Shinji and a boy who had studied with him for even longer, residing in his family's chateau while the Maestro lived in France and simply moving back to Japan when the Maestro moved to Tokyo-3.

The two of them were alike in that neither of them had ever worried about money or future occupations: Shinji doubted he would survive piloting, while Kaworu was from old, old money, the kind that had investments instead of businesses, stayed out of the public eye and spelled 'Kaoru' in an antique matter right out of _The Tale of Genji_. While all the other students had passed through the Maestro's doors intent on getting everything out of it they could, but especially his name on their curriculum vitae so they could compete for prestigious slots in the now-smaller world of classical music, Kaworu and Shinji weren't in any particular hurry. Both of them were here for the sake of the music, although otherwise, as the Maestro was fond of pointing out, they were as different as night and day.

Shinji's chestnut hair and blue eyes, proof of foreign blood on both his mother and father's sides were too light and out of the ordinary for someone who considered himself nothing special, really, aside from the cosmic accident of his birth. He was a very serious boy who didn't speak much to others, and then in short sentences, who almost seemed to be always braced for attack. Until he began to play, anyway.

Kaworu's ordinary black hair over lively black eyes concealed a sunny disposition and a poetic nature: he struck up an instant friendship with every student that passed through the Maestro's chambers. He could even made Ritsuko smile when she was the one who came to pick Shinji up, and she didn't like boys. Kaji she just didn't like in a way that somehow curved through are-you-serious to become liking, a kind of affection tinged with amusement because of how odd a couple they both knew they were. The only person Kaworu had ever hesitated to walk right up to was Misato, which was perfectly normal. She was _Misato Katsuragi_, after all. Shinji never found her intimidating, not when he was used to her wandering around so much of a sleep zombie in the early mornings that she didn't notice she'd forgotten to put on a shirt until enough Irish Coffee was poured down her throat. It wasn't until he'd observed more of the outside world that he noticed that to most people, Misato was basically a warrior goddess.

The other student didn't chatter at Shinji as much as he did with most of the others, but that was because Shinji didn't appreciate chatter, so he was glad that when Kaworu did talk to him, it was either musing aloud about the piece they were practicing or a greeting with a smile, passing along a message from their instructor, that sort of thing. The two of them had performed at various small recitals because the other music students of Tokyo-2 and Tokyo-3 appreciated both their skill and their lack of ambition: Kaworu and Shinji could be counted on not to demand solos, were perfectly willing to be second chair and didn't mind making other musicians look good. Kaworu's primary instruments were the violin and his own voice, while Shinji focused on the cello and violin. Shinji actually liked the sound of the harp, but for him to play that instrument, when SEELE called the abominations angels?

Shinji had never told that to anyone else, because Misato would have told him to screw what the public thought, go ahead and do it when that wasn't a good idea. Yet it just came up one afternoon while they were talking about the sounds of various instruments and Kaworu just nodded and said that was a pity: he'd like to hear Shinji play the harp but then he was sure he'd like to hear Shinji play almost anything.

The son of the Ikaris didn't have friends. Oh, he had his sister and her two friends and they kept trying to make him be friends with his sort-of-cousins Asuka and Rei, but Asuka saw him as a rival (she _hated _that Shinji's maestro wasn't willing to take her on as well, on top of countless other small injuries) and Rei was… Rei. The fact she was slowly absorbing human behavior from Ritsuko, of all people, didn't help. If anything, her role model just made her act more cold and scary when dealing with people she didn't know very well, which was everyone except Ritsuko, her partners and Dad.

Kaworu was just his fellow student and music partner, and it took Shinji a long time to realize that meant friend.

If Shinji ever thought about life beyond the time when he had to pilot the Eva, he might have imagined himself continuing to play various instruments at various small performances, never achieving any particular fame but never really wanting to. He wouldn't have said that music was his life, but it was an inseparable part of his life: Shinji couldn't imagine going a day without picking up an instrument. Walking around without wearing his music player, even if it wasn't turned on. Even if it did drown out sounds he should be paying attention to, watching for potential threats.

After sync tests, he played. After his first full day of Eva training, he played from until the cello until it almost slipped from his fingers and he staggered off to bed rather than let it fall to the ground when he finally fell asleep. After his first battle he played so long into the night that he wore his fingertips raw, trying to prove to himself that his hands were _his _hands again, not the monstrous ones that had moved with his thoughts. That might move without them.

Kaworu was the first guest invited by Shinji to their home, because obviously he couldn't go to Kaworu's home in Tokyo-2 and they needed to practice together for performances in addition to the practice time spent with the Maestro. The music room was Shinji's domain back then, and would remain that way until Asuka moved in and hogged it so much, filling it with her materials and presence that Shinji actually complained to Dad, who found Asuka another room in the other wing that she later shared with Rei without complaint, unlike Shinji. Asuka complained despite her music room being larger because it hadn't been designed as a music room, but this was Shinji's space. Even if it had windows. Maybe because of the windows, and the slice of blue sky above the hedgewall they showed.

The other boy hadn't made a big deal over being invited to the Fuyutsuki mansion, so it didn't occur to Shinji that it actually was kind of a big deal until Kensuke forcibly invited himself and Touji over and then Touji demanded Shinji 'invite' Hikari as well. After those two boys clattered around the place, exclaiming at things, Shinji found himself very grateful for Kaworu's smiles and the way he'd never made a big deal out of it, just been a little hesitant the first few times until, Shinji guessed, he stopped worrying that he was intruding. The only thing Shinji could remember him ever saying about the house was that the music room had nice acoustics, which it did so Shinji nodded and was able to focus on his playing and harmonizing with the sound of the violin.

Kaworu played in a more excited, brighter manner than Shinji did, but nothing like Asuka's frenzied sound at all. Perhaps Shinji found it easy to harmonize with because he was used to it, his preferences for mellower, slower sounds serving as a setting for Kaworu's rejoicing. Shinji found a comfortable peace in music, but Kaworu found beauty and wonder in it, and if Shinji ever thought about it he would have said he appreciated that, because the beauty and wonder was why Shinji found music gave him such serenity in the first place. It was almost like Kaworu got excited about it so Shinji didn't have to, but instead could just listen and experience. Kaworu seemed to adjust to Shinji's sound in the same way, enjoying the peace his partner experienced during their duets.

Practically everything Shinji knew about Kaworu came from overhearing the questions and chatter of fellow students: Shinji had never felt any particular need to ask Kaworu about his family background or anything like that because honestly, Shinji didn't like to be labeled that way himself. Everything important he knew about Kaworu came from hours spent playing together and the comments of their Maestro, from seeing him loosen his collar and gratefully accept a can of juice on the hottest days of the eternal summer but never take off the gloves he wore to protect his fingers from the strings.

Every conversation he'd had with Kaworu beyond a certain length had been about either the logistical and interpersonal problems involved in playing with other musicians who weren't them and couldn't get their egos sorted out easily for the sake of the music, or the history, interpretations, feelings and nuances of particular melodies. In both cases, Shinji's responses were mostly nods and short sentence fragments, often trailing off so Kaworu could pick up and agree or disagree with the other half of the statement.

It made Shinji smile bashfully and happily when other musicians referred to them as Kaworu-and-Shinji instead of Shinji and Kaworu, because it was nice to just be someone's companion instead of being important enough to, if not come first, then rate a specific mention of his own because of how significant he was. How unlike Misato or the heroic professor. As long as the whole Eva thing worked out well so the world was still there tomorrow (it was where they kept their instruments and all their sheet music!) the other musicians didn't care about _that_, just about the fact that it was Kaworu you wanted to talk to if you wanted to set something up, Kaworu who handled all the talking to people so Shinji could stay back behind him a little and unobtrusively assess the threat level of everyone present and map out routes to the exits. It wasn't so much that Shinji thought of it as throwing Kaworu to the wolves, as he thought of Kaworu as an excellent distraction that could be thrown at the wolves in the certain knowledge that he would keep them busy and wouldn't hold a grudge over it while Shinji made his escape from the small talk.

When he was up and about after fighting the third abomination to attack, the first thing he did was call Kaworu to say that he was sorry about having to cancel practice for a few days, but if Kaworu could come by tomorrow at the normal time they could try to get back to normal (pretend this wasn't happening, that all Shinji had to worry about was not disappointing the audience they had in a little under two weeks' time), and he'd heard Kaworu's smile as he said, "Of course, Shinji." Kaworu was relieved that Shinji was alright, he could hear it, but Shinji was grateful to him not for actually saying it. Treating this just like anything else had come up, some other annoying thing that got between Shinji and their practices, and now things would once again be like always.

Shinji loved his step-family, as crazy as Misato's additions to it were – Dad was equally bewildered by half of them – but he found himself really annoyed when they wanted to have a 'Congratulations for winning a giant robot battle!' party during his practice time. He'd already missed enough days because of the stupid abominations! He had to get back in condition! It was Kaworu who negotiated with Misato that the two of them would stay for awhile and have some cake, but Kaworu had really been looking forward to practicing with Shinji, and they had another recital coming up soon…

Outdoors in the heat the trio's drink was beer, and lots of it, but indoors, with the ever-present hum of the air conditioning going full blast to ward off the scorching heat of the Eternal Summer, Rits downed vodka shots while Kaji shook himself up the traditional martini before heading towards sharing a Screaming Orgasm with Misato via Sex on the Beach. The tradition of Kaji mixing those drinks was so old that even Shinji barely groaned at the single entendres, although apparently it was new enough to Kaworu for him to laugh a little, unless that was just him being friendly.

Asuka tried to talk her stepfather into mixing her up an adult woman's drink, only to get stuck with a Shirley Temple. Asuka's squawk of outrage startled Ritsuko enough that she fumbled her drink: she managed to keep the glass from shattering on the floor but Shinji and Kaworu both got splashed with the vodka.

"Damn! Don't startle me like that! Sorry, Shinji," Ritsuko told him, grabbing a napkin and quickly wiping off his face. "At least it won't stain, unlike _someone's_ crazy red wine concoction," Kaji. "Here, let me get you too-Are you alright?"

Kaworu had recoiled as though he'd been struck by vodka, not acid. "I'm fine," he told her, holding a gloved hand in front of his face while the other was held up to ward her off. "I'll clean it off myself, it won't take very long…"

"It's fine, I'll just take care of it," Ritsuko said, brushing away his hands and taking a step forward when he took a step back to rub at his face.

Then she frowned, and rubbed some more, her frown deepening since, "Your face is pale, are you alright?"

"I'm fine, really," he said, grabbing at the cloth. Ritsuko was holding it too tightly for him to snatch it out of her hand, and that was when she looked down and saw that it was no longer white.

"Hey, are you okay?" Kaji asked, and he was only the first to gather around Shinji's friend.

"Zits, huh?" Misato asked sympathetically, seeing the makeup that had come up onto the cloth.

"Are you kidding?" Asuka laughed. "That's way too much for zits. I _thought_ he was way too pretty." No straight guy could possibly be prettier than her.

"Come on, let me see," Ritsuko said, now in full Dr. Akagi mode. Not that she was a medical doctor, but she'd been looking after Rei for years. "Now your face is red… " Tsk. "You could have said something, it's not like allergies is a bad word," she said, getting a needle out of her pocket. She kept antihistamine shots on hand for Rei.

"That's not necessary," Kaworu said, almost desperately.

"And you're not hyperventilating," Misato said, starting to sound a little annoyed.

"Damn, he's going into shock," Ritsuko cursed, taking the cap off the needle and expertly finding the vein in his elbow.

When she tried to push it in, the needle bent. "What…" Ritsuko said, and collapsed.

"Ritsuko?" Misato asked, worried. "Asuka!" As her stepdaughter also fell to the floor, Misato suddenly seemed to realize what was going on.

"Kaworu, are you okay?" Shinji asked as his friend finally backed into the wall and started to slide down it. "I'll get another needle." Ritsuko made him learn for Rei's sake.

As he pulled away, Misato reached past him to grab Kaworu's collar. "What did you do to-Urk."

"Hands off," Kaji ordered her, taking advantage of the distraction to get a few more hits in, leaving her disoriented and gasping for breath. He knelt next to Kaworu and muttered a rapid phrase in his ear before taking his arm again. Kaworu managed to nod and this time the needle slid home.

"I'm sorry," Kaworu apologized as Kaji helped him stand up.

"It's my fault. I should have identified you earlier. What kind of an agent am I?" Kaji asked himself, shaking his head as he flung Kaworu's arm over his shoulders in a fireman's carry. "Rei's on standby, we've got to move fast before they get Unit 00 launched."

And that was when Shinji realized that something was wrong with Kaworu's face. Where the vodka had hit the skin was red and irritated, but on the right side of his face, where Ritsuko had tried to remove it, it wasn't a mess of smeared red dots on healthy skin.

Weeping red sores stained inhuman grey, where Ritsuko's rubbing hadn't just removed the makeup but let the alcohol penetrate it deeper. Rei was allergic to alcohol too, that was why they'd had the party while she wasn't here, Shinji remembered as Kaworu's eyes finally focused on him.

It was the look of horrified realization on his, his friend's, his _enemy's _face that made Shinji go numb.

Misato was the one to ask, "Why…" From where she lay in a crumbled heap.

"I love you Misato, I really do," Kaji said apologetically. "And that's why I don't want you to die." It wasn't just allergy shots that littered the ground, but two knockout needles: the ones the agent used on Ritsuko and Asuka.

Shinji wondered if he should feel insulted that Kaji hadn't disabled him (he'd run out of needles, but he could at least have punched Shinji, made it look like he was worth fighting), but Shinji already felt like he'd just been punched in the gut.

The sores on Kaworu's face were already healing.

"_Tabris_," Misato hissed, struggling to her feet even though Shinji had distinctly heard Kaji break one of her leg bones. "I'll…"

That was when Kaji threw the smoke canister. Shinji was almost grateful to be forced to close his eyes to protect them from the gas. It meant he didn't have to see his sister's husband run for his car carrying humanity's enemy.

All of Kaworu's, Tabris' things had been left in the music room. His bag, his violin and case, both copies of the music he'd brought and laid out on their stands.

Even after the Intelligence Division men left, Shinji found himself hesitating in the doorway, unable to step across the threshold. Eventually, he turned away.

* * *

"_He hasn't even asked about his teacher_," he heard Misato whisper to Ritsuko two days later.

"_Misato, why are you worrying about Shinji when you just found out that your husband has been working for SEELE since before the two of you even met?" _Ritsuko hissed, and if they'd been thinking clearly they would have remembered that the sound of a whisper carried further than just talking quietly, especially in a solid building like this.

With good acoustics.

"_I can't believe he let us invite a member of SEELE here to teach Shinji, he knows what music meant to Shinji…"_

Meant to Shinji? Shinji thought Ritsuko was right, why was Misato worrying about him when she'd just lost her husband? And the man who was Shinji's older brother, the one who taught Shinji how to stay alive.

Music was just… music.

The one thing in his life people wanted him for that wasn't Eva piloting. That didn't have anything to _do _with Eva piloting or what his parents had done.

But that wasn't true, was it? His teacher had only accepted him because of SEELE. The other musicians had gone to Kaworu to ask him to play for them, and Shinji was just baggage that came with Kaworu to them.

Kaworu was, was Tabris. The abomination his father served, his sister's enemy, who wanted to devour the world, or what was left of it.

Shinji had _invited Tabris_ into his dad's home. Misato's home. Shinji had already betrayed humanity, huh. Why wasn't anyone asking him if he was in on this? Misato, Misato and Dad were surely the only reasons, but they wouldn't trust him. They couldn't trust him to begin with, but all of Kaji's agents: how could they trust anyone now, especially Kaji's student? Tabris' _friend_.

…but, but he'd seemed so, so human. Nothing like Rei.

It was just a mask. The entire time, just a mask. Just makeup, just acting, just _a lie_.

Just like his mother's smiles.

"This is all your fault!"

Asuka: just what he needed, Shinji thought, backing up against the wall of the hallway, letting her corner him even though all his training, Kaji's training, said no way should he ever do that.

"If you hadn't brought it here, Kaji… Kaji would…" Shinji didn't even flinch as Asuka's palm hit his cheek, the sound if it ringing in his ears, sharp and final, like a door slamming in his face as Asuka ran off, tears in her eyes.

So even though it was still midmorning, he went back to his bedroom, alone, with nothing to do but stare up at the ceiling.

He didn't even try turning on his Sdat. Too many of the songs on there were ones he had played, or ones Kaworu liked too. Now, they were just as tainted as the music room.

As music itself.

* * *

_Allergies should be used as a justification for Achilles Heels more often: actually, off the top of my head I can't think of a single case of them being used. The nice thing about allergies is that what they actually are is some harmless to relatively harmless irritant making the victim's immune system freak out and start attacking the body. So if you have a character who's normally immune to disease, or has a ridiculous healing factor, they could be in quite a bit of trouble even from an amount of exposure that wouldn't realistically do anything if it was a poison. Not to mention that allergies get worse the more someone is exposed to the allergen, since the immune system gets better at responding to threats after being exposed to them. _

_Say, for example, that an older vampire doesn't have to worry about sunlight anymore because their healing factor has improved to the point they might not even feel the damage. However, over those centuries, they would have been repeatedly exposed to garlic by drinking the blood of people who have eaten it. In a world with mostly younger vampires, most people would consider the garlic thing a myth because it doesn't work on them, but a hunter who didn't know any better and consumed a few garlic supplement tabs before going on the hunt would probably get munched, since they don't know what they're doing, but an elder vampire would really regret it._

_I actually have a friend who really likes garlic, and he eventually became allergic to it after cooking with it enough. _


	5. Nor Are Enemies Considerate

_If you noticed in the last ChibiTabris chapter that he thinks it's all so very simple and people should just be friends, when that's not a realistic view of the world? Yeah._

* * *

"Then the abomination flew away, taking an indirect route back to the SEELE base," more like taking the scenic route and doing loops, "and humming."

"Thank you for your report, Captain Kato," the General said, but Professor Fuyutsuki cleared his throat to get the man's attention before the transmission was ended.

"Exactly how did he make a fire?" the older man asked thoughtfully, with a slight emphasis on the how.

"He intensified his glow," thankfully they were sure it wasn't radioactive, "and bent the light into a cone, focusing it on the tinder."

Fuyutsuki grimaced, but said, "Thank you. That helps."

"Thank _you_, sir."

"Is that all you need, Professor?" the general of the Himalayan Campaign asked him this time.

"I'm afraid so. I'll look over the full report on it later, but this is fine for now."

The general ended the transmission before turning back to the man whose hair had long since gone gray. "I don't know if he was instructed to show that off for us or not, but _bending light_." The professor sighed. "I'll need the Magi to run the numbers, but you're aware that our estimate of his AT field strength is imprecise even though we've had so long to measure it because our equipment can't differentiate beyond a certain magnitude?" Meaning they couldn't prove or disprove SEELE's claim that the abomination they controlled was powerful enough to repeat Second Impact. "Beyond a certain point there's really nothing measurable without being able to test exactly what he can do. Light of the soul and AT field are both not very good… metaphors." The Professor didn't quite want to dignify them with the word terms even though they were the best terms both groups had. "SEELE describes it as a radiant force, while for the purposes of the Eva project we're looking it as an unmoveable object, a force field." The field that enclosed the soul. "Those concepts are easier to work with than the reality, trying to break it down into Newtonian terms. You're aware that electrons and light are both waves and particles?"

"So light of the soul puts it in terms of radiant energy, like waves, and AT field treats it as an object?"

Fuyutsuki nodded. "Light is a very tricky thing: with a glass of water and a straw I could demonstrate that it violates the law of causality by following the most direct path despite having no means of knowing what the shortest path is in advance that doesn't essentially constitute time travel." In layman's terms. "If he can control light, he can control other subatomic particles. That's not just radiating them, giving off unnecessary energy in the visible spectrum, but actually controlling them. Again, I'll need the Magi to run the numbers, but this will give us a new minimum estimate of his AT field strength."

"I'm guessing we'll be revising that estimate dramatically upward," another of the generals present drawled. "Which wouldn't be good for our girl's morale."

"I wouldn't be so sure. She was there, Drake. She saw the White Giant." If anyone knew what she was getting herself into, fighting one of these things, it was Misato Katsuragi."This is the first combat test of… Well, we all know how insane the whole concept is." Giant robots. Giant _organic_ robots. Giant organic robots cloned from tissue of the thing that caused Third Impact, and one made from flesh sliced off humanity's progenitor. Giant abominations that had been designed by SEELE and the Ikaris to cause Third Impact to begin with. Oh, and since according to SEELE he had Adam's soul already, the only reason Tabris wouldn't be able to set off Third Impact by merging with it was that they'd let Naoko Akagi sacrifice herself to it. "If she didn't know what she was getting into, I wouldn't have signed off on this." And the French general's approval was a key reason this hadn't been pushed back another year, until Misato was a little older, even though the amount of contamination in her body and with it her sync level was decreasing over time. Even though the abomination wasn't old enough to have any interest in human woman, the lawlessness that engulfed many areas of the world after Third Impact? They'd all seen far too much of what happened to attractive teenage girls in war zones to have anything but a, "Hell no!" reaction to sending them into combat without any real backup.

Teaching them how to shoot hell _yes. _A gun completely took upper body strength out of the equation and trumped most other weapons. The mystique possessed by guns and the confidence they gave their owners would make even a terrified, already victimized and trembling girl a credible threat to someone trying to rape her. In fact, scarier for the fear, since even if she was too terrified of angering a man to decide to attack, instinct might override cultural conditioning long enough to pull the damn trigger.

When only the gangs had guns, villages full of civilians were helpless. When the civilians had guns of their own, and knew how to use them? The Wild West hadn't actually had a lot of crime, which was why the criminals who pulled it off were so admired at the time. It took brains and a _hell _of a lot of balls to pull off a heist back then. If a gang rode into a town of _Civil War veterans_ to rob a bank they were lucky to get out of there with their lives, forget any money. These were people who took, 'it's impossible to rob a moving train,' as a personal challenge.

Now, years after Second Impact, the young women who learned that weapons weren't just for men and meant the difference between safety and terror were all grown up and had dead relatives to mourn, both those dead in Second Impact and those dragged off into alleys because there wasn't anyone to protect them & they hadn't know how to protect themselves. The UN forces were hovering around fifty percent female membership. They were mostly integrated except for a few all-female units recruits could request to join (surprisingly few recruits requested to join an all-male unit, even those from cultures that practiced segregation), but the minimum age at which someone could join the military was normally an iron-clad law, since they got a _lot _of angry, old-before-their-time teenagers trying to join.

Misato was fifteen and had a personal beef not only with SEELE but the abominations, and when this one set it off by being born? That was just begging for her to lose her cool and go berserk on the battlefield. Stop thinking when stupidity killed.

Before the rise of the psychiatric profession, army chaplains were the ones soldiers came to when they were struggling with the moral implications of killing another human being, hoping that faith or _something_ would let them overcome their fear or worried they were beginning to lose control of themselves. Psychiatrists trying to fill that role found themselves reinventing the wheel, often completely unaware of the fact there were chaplain corps in various nations with centuries of institutional experience with these issues, especially when the lowering prestige of religion was letting officers take the 'soft-hearted' advice of the chaplains less seriously.

After the discovery of SEELE, Christianity took a huge hit. Religious practitioners became the hunted instead of the hunters in a new era of witch hunts.

Being Catholic, European and a woman who started serving in an era when that was far from normal, the Chaplain-Psychologist General of the UN Forces wouldn't still have her post and her head if she wasn't absolutely reliable, very good at her job and tough as nails. If she vouched for Misato after meeting with her several times, the survivor of Second Impact who still carried a cross, the rest of the UN General Staff was going to listen to her.

"Well," Professor Fuyutsuki said, since he'd already given up on keeping Misato from this, and it needed to be done, "We'll hopefully get more data on his strength when his AT field clashes with the Eva's. If it gives detectibly even a little, we'll have some kind of maximum strength estimate."

"You don't think that's very likely?" 'Drake' asked.

"Unless something unanticipated happens, and that's almost certain," given how emotional Misato would be, how untested Evas and the sync concept really were, "We did run the numbers on the highest strength field Unit 00 has generated and how strong a field it could reasonably affect. There's a high margin of error on all of this, not least of which is my memory, but…"

"But we're not going to get a better shot, and SEELE isn't going to want to destroy Unit 00." The Himalayan general still looked regretful: he was a father himself. The sooner Misato started piloting, the more skilled she could become. Unfortunately, the longer she waited _or _piloted, the older she became, the lower her aptitude for syncing with an Eva would drop. "We all know that if an angel shows up early, SEELE seems to think that sending Tabris to fight it would be too risky."

"Well, ladies and gentlemen," the chaplain said, "I'm sure you know what my only suggestion is at this point, no?"

Pray.

* * *

"Wow!"

"It's so cool!"

"Back up, kids, this is a restricted area." Sgt. Marianella fished some candy out of her pocket to soften the blow of not being allowed any closer to the giant robot the whole world had heard so much about. All the families in the area had been evacuated to the base first thing. Keeping the kids happy made it less likely that they'd get homesick and wind up with a bomb landing on them. They'd expanded the evacuation area after the abomination demonstrated that it could hit bombs quite a fair distance away from the SEELE base.

With people from so many different valleys here, it was easy for Tabris to slip himself in every so often to meet the Lilim that were attacking his home. They really were nice people, really, to the point that it was sometimes a problem to be as small as he was and not be with an adult. He had to point in the direction of a clump of people and say that he was with a sibling or cousin, then hope they didn't check. He only done it three times in as many months because the real problem would be getting home quickly enough and washing up in the event of a surprise attack, but he really wanted to see the Eva. He even had permission, since they wanted him to check if he was in any danger of merging with it accidently. He wasn't, thank goodness. There already was a soul in there, a Lilim, which was new.

It was much, much bigger standing here on the ground himself than in photos, even if he was looking over at it more than up at it. They were unwinding a huge cable: it could only operate without that cable for a little over a minute without an S2 engine. That was good since it meant he only had to keep it from hurting anyone for that long if it was a real challenge.

He didn't think it would be, but he knew he shouldn't think that. Lorenz would scold him for underestimating people, no matter what he'd said about what the Scrolls said. This was the combination of a Lilim and the flesh of Adam: that was a little like him, but his soul was the same kind as his father's, and it was the soul that mattered. Lilim souls were small things with a soft light, even if it rarely was a gentle light. Focusing their light would give them more power, but they only had so much power even if they used all of it they could spare from remaining individuals.

Still, the soul in there _could _project their light outside themselves. It made him want to go home and change so he could fly over as himself and say hi, even though that would worry the Lilim. No, he should go up in the hills nearby and let them see that he was there and they could come to him when they were ready, that would be less scary.

A Japanese teenager came out awhile later and joined the sergeant in handing out candy. Tabris was already gone, but he wouldn't have noticed the memory stick Kaji handed to one of the kids anyway, disguised as it was in a pack of gum.

* * *

Tabris _meant _to stay by the little creek, really he did. He was listening to really pretty music online, and he'd brought books. Then there was the way the light glinted off the rushing water as it went over the pebbles. Normally he could stare at something like that for hours: aside from repetitive tests, there were so many beautiful things in the world that Tabris hadn't been bored since he was allowed outside in it.

Then he realized that of course it was going to take time for them to get the Eva operational. It wasn't like him, it couldn't just wake up and fly wherever it wanted to go. They'd have to do all sorts of checks, and planning since the people on the watchtower would have seen him fly into this valley. They might not even be ready to see if it could handle the hills tomorrow, forget the first combat test! Even if he didn't want to fight.

He _could _just fly over there and perch on it, or a nearby building. The problem with that was that the only reason they _would _turn it on ahead of time was if they were scared of him doing something to them if they didn't.

He kicked his feet in the water, shoes on the rock next to him. He might be able to do a lot more than a Lilim his age, and he was Free Will, but that didn't mean he should just do whatever he felt like.

Tabris didn't need to look for a calmer patch of water to show him what he looked like: he knew. It took him such a long time to make himself look like a Lilim.

It wasn't like he _needed _friends. He was an angel, after all. They would all come one by one, seeking the progenitor to make themselves complete, adults and gods over a world of their children, not because they wanted a friend or a parent. Yet they were such wonderful things for the Lilim to have. All their stories and songs about how wonderful it was to have someone else that cared for them, it was hard to be certain that _all _the joy in it was simply temporary freedom from the pain of loneliness. No, it must be wonderful in and of itself too, like so many things in the Lilim world.

They made it sound so nice, and it would be nice to have someone to share all the wonderful things he kept finding with. Someone who wouldn't go, "That's nice, Tabris, but I need to…" Someone he could talk about things with. Lorenz knew a lot, but he wasn't interested in sharing what he knew: he wouldn't answer Tabris' questions about things Lorenz definitely knew, forget trying to figure out things together.

He had all this joy, and he couldn't share it with anyone, while all around him the Lilim were _hurting_. If he had a friend, at least he would be making one person forget their pain? Helping one person would be better than helping no one. Yes, he gave all the Lilim who saw him as the angel child hope, but… Was he really just wanting attention, the way some of them had scolded him, saying he was acting too much like a Lilim child?

He couldn't ask for a little brother or little sister to teach all the things he'd discovered about this world and the Lilim to, not when his creation had already hurt his father so badly. When complementation came he could share all the joy within him with the Lilim, but before then? He didn't want to wait, he felt ready to burst sometimes.

"Tis the gift to be simple, tis the gift to be free," he started to sing with a child's high, clear voice, choosing that song because he was in a valley. He liked singing most of all: of all the things Lilim had invented, it was the most wonderful. He could feel the good it did his soul, replacing growing turmoil with transcendent light. Lorenz had promised that someday, they would be able to gather more of SEELE's people somewhere safely, and he would be able to sing for the Lilim, share this light and joy insofar as was possible until complementation. He knew Lorenz wasn't saying that for the good of the other Lilim's souls, but the fact he definitely had his own reasons made it more likely to happen.

So, until then he was going to practice, he decided, nodding. Still, wasn't it the Lilim who weren't with SEELE that would need it more? So was that something he should do while pretending to be a Lilim? In that case, he shouldn't let the Lilim here know what his singing sounded like.

Maybe he should go home and take a bath until the Eva was ready to start? He could sing there without being overheard. Maybe nap, too, since it would make everyone feel better.

Unfortunately, the Lilim decided to try to see if they could tire him out before the Eva fought. If he didn't understand why they were fighting, he would have been very cross that his bath was interrupted. Normally he wouldn't have minded if people came to visit during his bath, because he did like talking to people, Tabris thought as he sat on a ledge in his bathrobe, crushing guns so the Lilim had to go back to base to get more, but they didn't want to talk unless they could try to use words to hurt people, like they were just another weapon. Taking one of the few ways Lilim had to reach out to each other and forget their pain to _inflict _pain was… Tabris sighed audibly, shaking his wet head and crushing a couple more guns when the Lilim revealed they had them by pulling them out to fire them at him. "I haven't come over to see the Eva uninvited, but you keep trying to come over to hurt people even though you know I don't want you to do that." It wasn't _fair_, Tabris thought, and knew that was probably his Lilim genetics acting up. It was very hard to be properly serene when he'd barely _started _his bath. Really, the Lilim had so much more to be upset about than he did, and he mustn't be mean to them when they had so much pain to deal with already. Still, "I'm going home, and I would really like it if you went home too and stayed there for awhile so I can have my bath."

And of course him saying he wanted something made the Lilim want to not let him have it, hope it was a weakness, or both, because even thought he flew the Lilim back to near their camp another group headed out not ten minutes later.

He probably shouldn't have sighed, he thought as he put the sleeping Lilim in a pile. They wanted to annoy and frustrate him, so instead of evoking sympathy the sigh must have made them think they were making progress.

Instead of coming to get their comrades, the next group took a different route. At least it was day, so the sleepers would be fine for awhile even if Tabris wasn't going to be nice enough to fly them back closer to the base if they weren't going to be nice enough to let him have his bath.

After the fourth group, he borrowed a metal drum from the monastery, filled it with water and built a fire nearer the border of the area he was protecting to keep the water warm after he warmed it by focusing light & heat. That way, at least he wouldn't have to fly so far, and it was like camping. It would be the first bath he'd ever made all for himself: generally they wanted to do things for him so much he didn't even get to turn on the water. Also because they knew that he'd turn it really hot if they didn't keep an eye on it. He spread the bathrobe over the top of the metal drum so he could put it back on while getting out, and also to keep the heat in a bit.

After that, the Lilim were considerate enough to start bringing their people back and leave him alone, so he curled up underwater in his drum (like the instrument, which made him smile).

Then he must have fallen asleep, because when he woke up there were bullets coming from every direction and his drum was shot full of holes. So was his bathrobe, but his _bath_!

He was mad enough that after he crushed their guns, he kind of bounced the Lilim on his AT field all the way back instead of carrying them. Then, he went and did the same with the group of Lilim that had arrived at the outside of the base, even if they weren't any closer to getting in and hurting anyone than they'd been half an hour ago before. That must be how the Lilim found out he was asleep and not paying attention. It made Tabris feel bad, and he ended up forgiving the Lilim for ruining his bath, because what if they hadn't woken him up until the other Lilim got inside and started hurting people? He shouldn't have fallen asleep when the people at home couldn't contact him no matter how comfortable he was.

They _still _hadn't come to save the other groups, so he piled them around where his bath had been so the fire would warm them, then started building up a fire again. The Lilim might decide he was using them as hostages, but at the moment he couldn't really care. He knew that Lilim couldn't really understand anyone else anyway, so there really wasn't so much point in working so hard to try to be understood and make them feel better. Anyway, keeping them from freezing to death was a lot more important than hurting feelings that were always hurting anyway, so Tabris sat there and watched the fire until morning. He might have curled up in it, but even though he could keep his clothes from getting burned, the heat felt really nice even sitting beside it, so he might fall asleep again. He got up to turn the Lilim around a few times so the ones on the outside didn't get too cold, but besides that he just read and listened to music until dawn.

When it got warm enough that the Lilim would be okay even if the fire went out, he left and this time the other Lilim came to get them. That was a relief: it would be sad if the Lilim were abandoned by the others, it would make them unable to forget their loneliness.

He wanted to hug all the Lilim, but they would be scared if they were awake and thought he was grabbing them, and it wasn't really the same if they were asleep.

* * *

_Hug all the things! _

_Tang optional._


	6. And Miles To Go

Kaji already missed his convertible. There was a lot more style in getaways that involved speeding along deserted border roads in an augmented convertible than driving at a perfectly normal speed among all the other perfectly normal cars, even if he couldn't have the bulletproof top down when they might get shot at and Ritsuko was lying down in the backseat already pulling up the files and papers they'd broken in to get.

Now, though, they were escaping UN territory instead of SEELE territory, and despite the tsunami the fact Tokyo-3 was here meant Japan had attracted a lot of immigration. This was the third car they'd switched to, and next it would be a yacht.

The abomination-the angel had been quiet the entire time, except for words of thanks to the SEELE followers who helped them along the way. By letting them switch cars, for example.

Kaji couldn't help but think that Rits would be happy to know it took him that much concentration to dodge her camera and eye-in-the-sky network this close to the citadel and her Maji. Consequences of being undercover so long. Even if that probably wasn't the real reason Tabris was so quiet. Speaking of which, "Sorry about…" Kaji trailed off, trying to think of something less utterly inadequate.

"About what?" Tabris asked. The words got his attention, seemed to wake him up enough to make the angel stop staring out the tinted window and reach into the bag a woman pulled together for him at the second stop. Tissues, a non-alcohol-based solvent, and probably the contents of her entire makeup drawer.

"Misato. I know she's your enemy, but…" He loved her. Hey, if he hadn't, he wouldn't have been able to get in so deep, right?

"She's a good person. Otherwise, I wouldn't have placed my sister in her hands after we found out about Gendo's illicit project."

Oh? "You let that happen?" Let him and Ritsuko break in there while Misato was outside wrecking havoc and carry off Gendo's creation, the second artificially-created angel?

"I'm certain she understood that," the angel said, turning to look at him as he wet the cloth.

"Yeah," Kaji admitted. "She did. She said that when you fight someone enough times, you basically have to learn to understand them, or else she would have gotten swatted worse than she did. She thinks… thought that you were a fairly good guy, for an eldritch abomination that wants to liquefy all of humanity and turn it into some kind of mass mind slime mold." A creature that could form when individual cells came together, oozing and consuming.

"The council intended to have Rei terminated so Gendo couldn't use her to fight to defend him and his heresy. Gendo's personal charisma is enough this could have fragmented SEELE, even though he is a very cold and cruel man when it doesn't suit him to be otherwise," Tabris sighed as he began to wipe down his face and his neck. "I hope my discovery there doesn't put Rei in danger."

"They'll lock her up again for safety's sake, her safety too, but Rits will know Rei didn't know you were there," Kaji assured him. "We need our pilots." Even if Rei would be relegated to desperation backup for awhile.

"The defenders of the Lilim. My brothers and sisters, who are now being called elder gods," by many of the UN's people, "must be stopped, or all of your souls will be erased. I never sought Misato's death."

"Well, that was obvious, from the way you'd swat her instead of crushing her." Misato's sync ratio, the amount of power Naoko's soul could produce: they weren't enough to give Tabris a workout even when he was five and Misato was the fifteen-year-old. All they could do was try to sneak past the eyes in the sky, plan their assaults on SEELE-held territory and outposts in utmost secrecy and hope he wouldn't get there until they were out again past the border, objective acquired or destroyed.

Ritsuko and Misato had never been as terrified of him catching up to them as the time they ran out of there with Rei in Kaji's backseat, wrapped in a blanket with Ritsuko's arms around her. She held the little angel tightly and protectively, because Rits had already seen more than enough in Gendo's files, in Rei's resemblance to his dead wife to horrify her. First he'd seduced Ritsuko's own mother to make her serve him in more ways than one after Yui gave herself to the Eva, and now he was making an angel in her image? Creepy bastard. Good thing they'd gotten Rei out of there, Kaji thought, and felt disloyal and compromised again until he remembered that right, Tabris approved, so it was okay for Kaji to feel that a raid he'd executed on the UN's behalf succeeding was a good thing.

Phew.

"Misato is a valiant soul. The complementation of the Lilim would be less than it could be without her."

Kaji nodded: he wanted Misato to live long enough to be part of it. And Rits, Asuka, Rei, Shinji…

"Second Impact was a terrible tragedy: all those souls lost, and all those Lilim returned to painful loneliness without the ones who allowed them to forget their solitude." Tabris had never argued that. "However, if it hadn't been set off, Adam would have awakened along with the first angel you destroyed so easily, and he is not a foe you could defeat. Once he merged with one of his pure children, every human soul would have been obliterated. To choose between the deaths of so many and the deaths of all his fellow Lilim… I pity Lorenz. His heart has become as cold as Gendo's, as trapped by the pain and loneliness he knows he helped create, and still. You Lilim are alive now because he made that choice, instead of converted into primordial soup for children of Adam to arise out of." Earth would have become the home of children of the white seed one and a half weeks ago, since N2 weapons couldn't have killed the second abomination before Adam got there and shielded it, and nothing but the fossil record would be left to show humanity had ever been here. "Misato also fights to protect your fragile lives, she simply can't have faith that instrumentality would bring oneness, not obliteration. When she was left to suffer alone because of SEELE, why should she believe that their work is to eliminate loneliness and suffering?" The angel shook his head and looked for somewhere to put the dirty tissues.

"Just toss them in the back," Kaji told him, and found himself amazed for a moment that he'd said that to an angel, much less this one. "That was the reason I never tried to sound her out. Play devil's advocate, I mean angel's advocate." Just in an 'the other guy has a point,' or 'understand your enemy' way, or so he would have claimed. Certainly not trying to convert her to a SEELE adherent, of course not.

"I understand," the angel said, and Kaji felt a bit better about how far under he'd gone. "You made her happy, helped her to forget the pain and loneliness that is the nature of the lives of you Lilim. Even as your opponent, I saw how the three of you cared for each other. Is it not part of the teachings of SEELE that Lilim should nurture each other's souls, act with mindfulness and compassion and try to become one as best you can to lessen the suffering of your fellow Lilim until the promised day? There is no need to regret that. As for the soldiers who died in your battles… war and death are also part of the nature of Lilim existence. For now, they are inevitabilities, but you and Misato both did what you could to reduce the number of the dead."

On their side, mainly, but by focusing on the power of the Eva they made battles involve smaller numbers of people, and fewer total died in the confusion, from Tabris' understanding of Lilim tactics. "I would have preferred it if all the people of SEELE could live peacefully among their fellow Lilim, but that is not in the nature of Lilim. You fear being hurt by each other too much, even though it is an inevitability. By gathering, by creating a refuge for those who lived in fear of their neighbors, we gave those who mourned the lost a target for their pain and grief. For you to place yourself within the very hands of those who wished your death," to _become _the hands of the enemy, "to protect your fellow Lilim and accepting the pain that would surely come from it was a very kind thing to do."

Kaji restrained himself from rolling his eyes, but it took a little effort. So the angel really was a little too noble to grasp how Lilim thought. "I think Misato would disagree with you."

"She is not foolish enough to believe that life without pain is possible for Lilim." She'd shouted it at him as she fired at his AT field. "She believes that Lilim should go on living despite it. Value the time they have with their loved ones and find new happiness instead of being dragged down by sorrow. Find others to relieve their loneliness. I believe she has the strength to exist in that manner: her heart is of iron. Brittle, flawed and it took her time to reforge it after the loss of her father, but I am certain she has the strength to do it a second time."

"I've really broken her heart, huh." If even the angel thought so.

"Of course you have," the angel said, and smiled as though that was a wonderful thing, because, "She loves you very much. You took a great deal of her pain and anger away: I saw her change. Thinking that it was a lie will devastate her because of how much of her loneliness you relieved: the loss is proportionate to the love. To the pain your company let her forget for all those years. You should reassure her that your feelings for her are real, insofar as it is possible for Lilim to communicate their true emotions to each other. If the council doesn't grant you enough communications access, come to me. If you want to send a letter or a physical gift, the ambassador can present it to her." Thanks to diplomatic immunity.

"Thanks, but I don't know what would make her happy." Besides his head on a platter. Subject change? "How long have you been able to pass for human?" Kaji asked. "Call it professional curiosity." Even he hadn't been aware Tabris had… well, not exactly a deceptive streak per se, but cared enough about the opinions of others to want to interact with Lilim who thought he was another Lilim? Mingle with the common folk? Go into UN territory and see how the other four-fifths of the planet lived without everyone running for their lives and yelling for Misato?

"Enough to walk in a crowd, since two months after the Betrayal." Fuyutsuki was SEELE's Judas. "I was able to pass about this well around six months afterwards." The angel took off his gloves to show Kaji a perfectly normal, healthy-looking hand. Except for the nail polish, but when the alternative was grey skin showing under the nails? If Tabris' options were looking metro or getting attacked… "After the refuge was founded I could walk among them as Tabris openly, but I still kept in practice. The Maestro didn't want to leave his students and be cut off from the world of music by coming to the refuge, so I went to him when I had learned all the other musicians among our followers could teach me. I wore the gloves since it's amazing what Lilim can have on their hands, and even though this makeup is waterproof I need to be able to remove it somehow." If he appeared as Tabris with peach streaks on his chin, the UN spies would have noticed and reported that SEELE were probably experimenting with something to let him go undercover. But if he was disguised and shook hands with someone whose hand was covered with something that would dissolve the makeup?

Kaji laughed. "You said it." Especially kids like Shinji and Asuka. Then there was mad scientist Ritsuko. Although she knew very well to wash her hands after handling anything potentially hazardous, that left a lot of ground to cover. Back when she was a pilot Misato got covered in grease, oil and LCL enough for a whole wet t-shirt competition. "And then I gave the Professor the OK to invite your teacher to Tokyo-3 to teach Shinji," on the recommendation of Shinji's last teacher. "Wonder if it was fate somehow."

"I'm sure it was," the angel agreed. "That's why I didn't cease to be the Maestro's student when he was asked to teach him. The meeting between the Third Child and the Angel of Free Will was prophesized in the Scrolls."

Well, that was news to Kaji, not that many were granted knowledge of the Secret Dead Sea Scrolls.

Tabris looked less happy at another thought. "The prophecies are also why Gendo escaped punishment for Rei's creation. Most of the Council agreed that Misato Katsuragi was the First Child, since she became the pilot of Unit 00 and survived what should have been certain death in the Rapture, but the use of Yui's human DNA as well as Lilith's soul allowed the younger goddess to qualify as enough of a Lilim to fit the text. Since he was acting in accordance with the prophecies, his importance has only increased as a result." The angel was silent for a moment. "Tell me, what does Shinji think of my sister?"

"He doesn't trust her one bit and goes out of his way to avoid her, sad to say." Kaji did feel a little bad about it, since his training contributed to Shinji's paranoia. "She looks like his insane mother, was created by his insane mass-murdering father: she's a living reminder of all the evil in his blood, and she looks like an abomination. When he already knows that the reason he's a pilot is that he's contaminated by angelic fallout, probably on purpose? He looks at her, and he sees what might be hiding just under his skin."

"And now someone else's human mask fell away to reveal an abomination." Tabris shook his head, clearly thinking that was a pity even though the pain of Lilim was inevitable.

Kaji decided not to tell Tabris that according to Misato, Shinji already had nightmares about turning into an abomination, either by his parents holding him down and experimenting on him or his mother waking up while he was trapped inside Unit 01 and doing something to him that let her trigger Third Impact using him.

Silence in the car for awhile, before Tabris finally put his gloves back on and put his black contacts back in their case. Red eyes looked at Kaji seriously. "There is some argument among the council about the Dead Sea Scrolls' description of what will set off instrumentality. Gendo's and Yui's interpretation is that the words do not describe a single destiny but a range of possible options. The one they both desire most does not involve the Third Child. Another option is that several factors capable of causing instrumentality will all come together at once, even though the prophecies state that several of those factors will already have been destroyed. Ryoji Kaji, will you act as my left hand in this, as you were Misato's? Will you help me prevent Gendo from committing any further crimes, so that he brings no more pain to Shinji before the day all pain will end? I will not ask you to act against those who gave you a home, a place where you found happiness. Instead, I hope this will be a way for you to keep acting on their behalf, to protect those who relieved the pain of your loneliness."

"Can I call myself Grand High Inquisitor?" Kaji wondered, one corner of his mouth turning up as he looked at Tabris to see if he found it funny.

Tabris did get the reference, and smiled, but the smile and raised eyebrow asked Kaji if he was really serious, because SEELE already had a terrible enough reputation without reminding people of that era of torture and innocent Lilim being burnt at the stake so inquisitors could take their earthly possessions. "I'm afraid the Council would object. The Inquisitors targeted the wealthy since they got their money by taking everything their victims had. Since the members of SEELE were also often in positions of power other than the Church and the local government they would have been desirable targets even if they weren't actually heretics. There is no European member of the old families," the members of SEELE who had passed down traditions in secret for centuries, as opposed to new members converted either as the world's population exploded or after Second Impact, "who didn't have more than one of their ancestors tortured to death by inquisitors. That's part of the reason the Council established the Refuge and opened it even to new people who decided on their own to share SEELE's beliefs, even though it meant open conflict with the world and the risk of infiltration."

Tabris had been more than a little help there, Kaji knew. Angels had the ability to infect computer systems and living organisms. These days, Tabris give a speech to crowds of immigrants before they were released into the general population, and most UN infiltrators would find themselves taken aside afterwards. At first they'd been interrogated pretty roughly, but these days they were mostly just kicked back over the border.

At first, the ones who made it through after that practice began were treated with so much suspicion it made their data worse than useless, since it was assumed that they'd made it past the abomination's screening because they had actually converted during the intake process (SEELE was a cult, it knew how to do cultist programming) or _been _converted.

Eventually they'd figured out that Tabris wasn't doing that deep a scan, if it could understand human minds well enough to actually read thoughts in the first place. The angel checked for emotions. Not people who were nervous or afraid of the angel, because it was Lilim nature to be frightened of that which was different, powerful and new to them, but someone feeling a flash of hatred when they saw Tabris or one of the new SEELE uniforms was kind of a giveaway. The ones who made it through were the ones who could get in character: unfortunately that came with the risk of going too far under, letting the mask become reality. An agent could get too attached, too.

Like, oh, _marrying his target_.

Misato was going to miss him, Kaji knew. But some of those bullets were going to hit. He was almost looking forward to it. "Can I at least have a pin-up of Misato in my office?" To remind SEELE's other agents of just how badass he was and how many times he'd run rings around them.

Kaworu smiled. "A poster, of course. A pin-up, no."

"So you do know what those are." Darn.

"I have spent _some _time around boys who think I'm one of them," so of course he did, even though SEELE would have preferred he stay innocent of such things. It was a pity Fuyutsuki had betrayed SEELE and caused so much strife, but that was what forced SEELE to let Tabris at least see the outside world years earlier than they'd planned. That was why he was able to meet Shinji and at least give him company and happiness for a time, before either of their prophesized meetings. "At least I am almost certain now that he will not reject me when the time comes," Tabris thought aloud.

"Who? Shinji?"

"Yes." The angel nodded, black hair over pale grey skin making him look like something of a goth zombie, he knew. He liked most musical subcultures but that particular one bewildered him, except for the ones who dressed that way because they liked dressing up, shocking other Lilim and laughing inside about their reactions. If he raised his AT field his skin would pale until it became white, sometimes with hints of other colors, but he wasn't going to start glowing for the sake of personal appearance. He'd have to wait until they were on the boat to wash the dye out. He didn't explain what he meant any further: he knew that Kaji didn't wish any harm upon Shinji, but the more who knew the Third Child's true significance in the prophesies, the more the Lilim he fought to protect would try to kill him.

The one who would save the world from the other angels, only to accept Tabris' offer of help and oneness when the pain became too much.

The one who would save the world from the other angels, and murder Tabris even though the angel wished him no harm and did not resist.

Both Shinji's prophesized futures, if indeed they were two separate futures would make one half of the world or another want him dead.

Shinji was a Lilim, but Tabris knew Shinji's heart. There was no need to search Shinji's emotions: he'd heard them in his music. Even though it was the nature of Lilim to hurt others, they were incapable of living without hurting others, even though the only way for them to go forward was by climbing over the bodies of others of their kind, Shinji would not kill someone who did not resist. Would not kill someone he surely knew as well as Tabris did Shinji. Not unless there was no other choice.

SEELE never had any intention of showing Tabris the Scrolls, not when they wanted him to comply with their wishes and his death was an option, but after he had in effect become their public face, that made him responsible for more lives than his own. After meeting humans outside, after seeing their pain, he had made promises to himself and to them.

He had promises to keep.


	7. Is This An Enemy?

When the Eva finally started advancing more than a few meters Tabris was back in the monastery getting deportment lessons, which was proper behavior in different cultures and how to not scare the Lilim. There was a lot of it, like what words in different languages to use or not use, what to wear and how to move or not move. Fortunately, they were teaching him both how to act like a non-scary angel according to the rules of different kinds of Lilim & how to act like a Lilim of one of those different kinds. There were a lot of very complicated rules, but it was a good thing he was learning them. Who would have thought that Lilim could find someone just being straightforwardly nice and friendly worrying? Well, it made sense: Lilim couldn't see when someone was lying, so they had all these secret signals they sent to try to prove that they really weren't lying, and then things they didn't do because it might make the other person think they were lying, so no one did them except liars who weren't good enough at it.

Poor, poor Lilim. They needed other Lilim, and it was hard for them to reach out, and it was hard for them to let anyone close without them jumping through hoops first, and… Well, no wonder complementation was the only real way to help them.

He wanted to help them _now_, though, he thought as one of the Lilim folded cloth around him in a complicated pattern.

"What do you think, your holiness?"

Fabric was pooled on the ground around his feet. "I think it's very pretty, but I'd worry about getting it dirty." Except when he was flying, and this was one of the category of things he wasn't supposed to fly in, not without wearing something underneath.

Tabris was mostly paying attention to the Eva. Its AT field was very noticeable when it was activated, like the moon rising in a night sky filled with stars.

When it headed right for the invisible line that marked the boundary between the place Tabris protected and the place the other Lilim did instead of pacing back and forth, his head perked up.

"Your holiness?"

"It's coming!" Tabris told her happily, holding his arms up to her. "Could you take this off, please?" He could put the simple clothes he wore for fighting in on by himself without any trouble, although he let the Lilim help him sometimes because it was their job and it got the new ones used to touching him instead of thinking he was made of glass. Or maybe diamond: they treated him as too precious to risk breaking, not necessarily like something that would break easily. He liked it when they were willing to pick him up and let him sit on their laps or next to them while he read or listened. Reverence was partially made up of fear, and he didn't like fear.

He let the lady pull the white tunic down over his head and hold out the pants for him to step into, tying the belt (that now had clouds embroidered on it in white: he would have to thank whoever did that, because it was pretty) so the ends hung down on one of his sides. He'd worn this before, and he'd always come back fine before, right? The most he'd ever been affected was that time a Lilim got hurt and when they ruined his bath. He hoped she wouldn't worry too much.

Still, it made him happy that she worried, because it meant that he was taking away some of her loneliness. That he'd managed to make her happy enough that she didn't want to lose him. So he flew up and hugged her, after she brushed his hair a bit. "I'll be okay, don't worry," he told her.

She rubbed his head, messing up his hair again. "I'll try to have faith, your little holiness." Little, he was little, and little Lilim were fragile.

He nodded, smiling up at her. "It'll be okay." He was hoping it would be better than okay, but there were some things it was better to just not tell people about, because then Lorenz would find out and he was good at making things troublesome.

* * *

'Sync ratio' was just a fancy term for the two of them having to move at the same time. Ritsuko's mom _could _move the Eva around by herself, but having to focus on that made it practically impossible to generate an AT field, something like patting one's head while rubbing one's stomach in a circle. So Misato had to see the Eva as her own body, see herself and Naoko as one body, with one heart.

It helped if she focused on protecting Ritsuko, so it was a good thing they'd become friends so fast. Ritsuko was here, of course, because this was her mother. Kaji had also somehow managed to finagle his way along, which on the one hand Misato was happy about but on the other she wished he'd stayed back in Tokyo-3 where it was safe. Kaji and safe, though? Those words didn't exactly belong in the same sentence. Oh, he watched his back, but instead of playing it safe he used his skills to get away with taking risks. Like, oh, asking her out on a date to begin with.

Misato had decided to reinvent herself as a Tough Woman, the kind of person who definitely wouldn't need her father to die to save her and then end up locked up for years unable to rescue herself. Tough Women didn't blush over boys.

"_It's okay,_" Naoko said. "_I won't tell. And I'm in no position to talk about the stupidity of crushes. That's the best part of being in this body: utterly wrong kinds of hormones_." This Eva's parts were made from Adam, after all. "_The sad thing is that I wanted him _because of_ how devoted he was to his wife, because there wasn't room for anyone else in his heart. I wanted someone capable of feeling that way about me. Well, I was half right, but the wrong half." _Gendo was capable of feeling that way… But never about Naoko.

Misato didn't reply but still tried to focus on climbing up the slope, cord spooling out behind her. She knew everyone thought she couldn't do it: she could see what was right in front of her face. This was the prototype Eva, in its first real combat test, even if they'd done simulations and practiced with targets.

She wasn't going to give up on winning this time, and she definitely wasn't going to give up on beating that _thing_ even if she failed this time!

"Hello!"

The Eva blinked.

The abomination sitting on top of the Eva's head and leaning, or hanging down to look into the Eva's eyes smiled and waved.

Misato's mind went _aarghgetioffme! _The way she would have reacted to finding a spider hanging on the edge of her eyelid, right in front of her eye.

Her hand went _smack_, but the abomination that took the form of a pallid child was already gone.

She tried to spin around to see where it had gone, but the heaviness of the legs that were not hers warned her that trying to move too fast, inertia being what it was, could send her tumbling to the ground. "Ritsuko, where'd it go?"

"It's flying around you." Flying circles around her. It made Ritsuko think of that scene with the Imperial walkers on Hoth getting tangled in a chain, except the abomination wasn't wrapping the Eva's legs with anything and he wasn't just looking at how the legs were put together, but all of it.

"You really are made from the same flesh as me! Well, the flesh of Adam instead of Adam and Lilim-" After appearing in front of Misato, the abomination dodged her punch, "But you have a Lilim soul while I have an angelic soul, so that works out about, um… So I'm one-fourth Lilim that way, and you're half-Lilim? If soul and body each count as half." The abomination paused to think, which let Misato grab it in her right hand and _squeeze_.

Nothing happened. It was like she was squeezing diamond. Baring her teeth, Misato called up all her anger and hatred, focusing her mind, soul and will into that hand. She knew without Ritsuko having to tell her that her sync ratio dropped instead of rising: Naoko didn't feel the same hatred Misato did.

Ritsuko. She had to kill this thing for Ritsuko's sake, and Kaji's, and what was left of the world.

Pale, thin arms pushed her fingers apart with ease so the thing SEELE created by screwing Chthulu could stick his head out of her fist to look up at her. His body's strength wasn't comparable to the Eva's, but she knew he was using his AT field.

Too-wide red eyes looked up at her Eva's, and she felt herself shudder with instinctive revulsion as she slammed her other hand down on that thing's head so she didn't have to _look at it_. It was _wrong _somehow, made all the hairs stand up on the back of her neck. Not human, not a child, a _thing_ trying to look like one. The fact it was small relative to the Eva made it worse: small dangerous animal meant poison, and the thought of this thing encroaching into her, creeping into her veins and tampering with her mind, turning her into a _thing_ made her want to throw up.

She could feel it wriggling in her hand, AT field not exactly frictionless (because that meant it wouldn't have any purchase on her fingers) but somehow too-slippery because _she _couldn't get a grip on it, couldn't dig into it at all, and it made her think of something slimy, ooze and like a centipede.

She wasn't sure whether it was her or Naoko that moved to throw it away from her into the rockface. Would that work? What she did was supposed to be backed by her AT field, will/soul or whatever, and she'd _definitely _wanted it to go smash.

Misato would have felt like she'd done something if there was at least a crater or an indentation in the mountain, but it looked like the abomination's field had stopped it, or stopped the mountain without pressing into it. Or it had just decelerated because oh yeah: it could _fly_, so sending it flying through the air was a stupid idea to begin with.

The anger at herself and her own stupidity sent her sync ratio climbing again. _That _was certainly an emotion Naoko was familiar with.

"You're like me, made from Adam, but you're defending the Lilim," it pointed out next, poking at the Eva's hand, the one that had thrown it.

"Shut _up! _Naoko is nothing like you!"

"And you're using the power of the light of the soul too, aren't you, Miss Misato?" it asked, landing. Standing on the ground, it poked at the side of the Eva's foot now.

Misato pulled that foot back, towards the other one, and then found that without her feet apart for balance the Eva wasn't stable enough, so she had to move the other foot over hurriedly, both feeling the Eva sway as though her own too-heavy body was swaying & as though she was in a boat in a storm. Or a capsule in a tsunami. It reminded her of Second Impact, and she could taste bile in the back of her throat: sickness, hatred and the memory of that white giant, those _things_. This was one of them, this had _brought them _upon everyone. "Get up here where I can see you!" she raged, short hair currently dyed dark blue falling in front of her face.

"Okay," it said, sounding pleased. It waved at her, intercepting her punch with its AT Field this time. "My name is Tabris, the Angel of Free Will, but you probably already knew that."

"You're no angel!" Misato yelled, teeth still bared as she punched the barrier twice in succession, watching the pale hexagons flash into existence at the impact.

"Well, I'm not bringing a message right now… Is it because I don't have wings?" he tilted his head to the side, wondering if it would help if he grew wings.

"Shut up and fight me!"

"…Alright?" he said, sounding a little lost, but if that was what she wanted… His AT field flared out at her, bashing at her like a physical shield and sending the Eva skidding down the hill. "Is that better?" he asked when she managed to stabilize herself again. "Can we talk now?"

Surging up the hill to punch at him again, she grabbed at the knife sheathed in her Eva when that didn't work. "What part of shut up don't you understand?" The knife pressed against his AT field, but even focusing all the power she and Naoko had at the tip of the blade didn't let it press through.

"I can go away for awhile?" he wondered. "There are some more Lilim trying to use this fight to sneak past me, so I'll put them back in your base and then I'll be back soon." Maybe that would give her some time to cool down?

He didn't like weapons. They were so impersonal. At least when Lilim fought with bodies and souls they were making contact with each other, might understand each other through that contact. Misato fighting him with another's soul, with another body as armor between the two of them? He didn't know if he could get through it to her, and Dr. Akagi hadn't replied to him even once. At least Misato was talking to him, even if it was enemy talk and she wasn't really listening? Tabris ignored Misato's demand to stay and fight her as he flew off to take care of this real quick.

"Hello! The Eva's here today, so I want to get back to that," he told the soldiers. "Will you go home on your own after I break your guns, or should I take you back? It would be faster to take you back, so I don't mind doing that." When they opened fire instead of being polite enough to respond, he decided that oh well, if they didn't want him to use his powers on them he'd given them a chance to say so, and just scooped them all up and zipped back to their base with them. He knew it was a little naughty of him not to warn them, but their surprised sounds just made him smile, restoring his excitement as he flew back to the Eva enough to spin for a bit, and laugh from the way it made him dizzy, even though it was harder for him to get dizzy than a Lilim. He didn't mind spinning around for longer, though: it was fun!

"Hello again!" he said to the Eva and the pilot inside as all the Lilim on the ground around them dived for cover. "Oh, you're bringing a gun?" Tabris saw, and flew over to look at it. "I guess I can wait until you're done, or would it save you the trouble if I just crushed it now? Well, I guess you want to try so I should let you, since you went to all this trouble to make it. I'll go sit over there until you're ready." Smiling, he sat down on a boulder and watched the Eva crouch down defensively over the Lilim, but also because not having to focus on maintaining her balance made it easier to pick up the big gun.

This was exciting, because hopefully when the Lilim ran out of other things to try, she and the Eva would finally try talking? He rolled over to lie on his stomach, resting his elbows on the rock and his head on his hands so he could look up while his legs kicked idly.

When Misato readied the rifle before the Lilim had pulled back, one of them kicked at the Eva's feet. "Hey! Give us time to get clear before you shoot the thing!"

Misato grumbled, but Ritsuko was right. There hadn't really been much hope of the element of surprise, even though this was just giving the thing more time to prepare.

At least the fact the abomination saw this as a game, making fun of her and humanity, meant it wasn't likely to try encroachment or any of the other awful things abominations were theoretically capable of? Once she got stronger, though, she'd have to worry about making the damn thing start fighting seriously.

The other Lilim left, and took the vehicle that had carried the gun up here with them. Tabris decided that he would fly around a little, because it would be boring to just sit on the rock deflecting bullets. He'd been doing that for _ages_, even if these were AT field-backed. The Eva needed to practice to fight the other angels, so he should help as much as he could.

Even though Tabris wasn't going especially fast, the first clip's bullets didn't come anywhere near him due to the problems of coordinating the Eva and the gun. Yes, it was the same size relative to the Eva as guns Misato had practiced with were relative to the teenager, but Naoko had never shot a gun in her life and the square-cube law meant that for the increase in physical size, there was a _much _bigger increase in the inertia and momentum it had when she adjusted it to try to rapidly bring it to bear on the target. They had practiced this, but the reason she'd gone out with the knife instead of the gun to begin with was that the knife was a lot more reliable.

When she started kneeling down to reload he stopped zipping around and looked at what she was doing curiously. Then the new clip started to glow the same color as his AT field and he levitated it up to her level, tilting his head to the side hopefully.

So he wanted to keep playing? "I don't need your help!" Misato snarled at him.

The clip jiggled a little. It was right there already, so she might as well take it, right?

Tabris didn't mean anything insulting by it: people tried that with him and it was meant fondly, not insultingly. The trouble was that it was something Lilim did with _children_, and while Tabris was still very small Misato was a _teenager_.

She went straight from insulted frustration to trying to hit him _and _the clip with the gun, ramming it down against his AT field repeatedly with arms that barely felt the weight of the metal.

The boy didn't have any idea what he'd done wrong, so he let the Lilim try to hit him in case that made her feel better, or at least made her tired so she could calm down.

When he saw the tiredness of even the Eva's arms (they were still biological, could still grow fatigued) but Misato still kept trying to hit him, moving arms that felt like they too were made of lead, so angry and determined to hurt him that she kept trying even knowing it wouldn't work, Tabris felt sad, both for her and himself, because this strong a rejection of him? He'd known that making friends wasn't very likely, but he'd still hoped. He didn't want to give up, but he crushed the gun anyway.

When the Eva didn't move after that, when neither of them spoke, he didn't know what to say. There might not be anything _he _could say to make the Lilim feel better, when she didn't want him to exist and speaking would remind her of his existence.

There might not be anything he could do to make her feel better, other than eventually bringing about complementation. For now, all he could think of to do was leaving her alone so hopefully some other Lilim would come to help her forget her pain.

When he disappeared over the hills Misato screamed and screamed again, banging her fists on the armrests, shaking her head and kicking in sheer rage, frustration and denial of her powerlessness, her inability to control the world well enough to kill the damn thing! She'd tried everything they'd come up with: was it because she was weak? Was she unable to avenge her father because she was weak? "I hate them, I hate them!" she yelled up at heaven, shaking with the force of the emotions she couldn't hold back any longer and too far gone to be conscious of the fact that the word for this was tantrum, that she was flipping out in front of everyone cleared to monitor her performance.

Eventually the shields of anger and hate failed her just like her physical weapons had, and she was forced to remember the _causes _of that anger and hate. Her years of killing isolation. Her father's sacrifice, her mother's kidnapping. Everything she'd lost, and not just her but the world. The cosmic unfairness, the cosmic wrongness of it. She'd been a good girl, and things like that just weren't supposed to happen! Things like that weren't meant to exist, and for humans to unleash them on other humans? To decide to torment her and murder billions of people?

Tabris wasn't only a thing she hated, he was barring her path to SEELE, to all the others who needed to die for her and the world to be avenged, for some part of this, however small, to be made _right_. Crush them, kill them, let them drown choking on their own blood like so many had drowned in Second Impact.

None of those listening knew what to say, not when she was giving voice to their own rage, their own grief. When Misato demanded, "Why, why?" that was what they wanted to know. Maybe that was why some people were starting to believe SEELE had it right: not just the practical matter of the threat of Adam and the other abominations, but thinking that instrumentality and complementation were worth it, they had to be, because something this terrible just couldn't be allowed to happen otherwise. God or whatever they believed in wouldn't let it.

The cosmos was a cold, lonely place and human life was so fragile, would die of heat or cold or lack of air or air they couldn't breath in almost all of it. Human existence wasn't the center of the universe, but a piece of fragile luck… Or so they'd thought, until they'd found the source of that luck, that it was no miracle of nature: humans were made and their environment was created for them by one of the abominations. Well, at least that explained why intelligent design wasn't: for one thing, back injuries could be impossible to fix because the back was still oriented for gravity to be pressing down on it, not to be vertical.

And now that manufactured luck had run out, now it was another race's turn to have the planet. Humanity's number was up, their birthrate wasn't climbing despite efforts to disprove SEELE's theory that Lilith was out of souls, the world was being made barren by LCL. Soon they wouldn't be able to survive, much less have a next generation to follow after them, in the one place in the cosmos they could reach that they had any hope of surviving in.

All of them were people who had spent their entire lives working either to save lives or to understand the universe, and they understood what was coursing through Misato's veins right now. Wished she hadn't had to face this so _young_.

Professor Fuyutsuki's face was buried in his hands. Ritsuko kept opening her mouth, trying to think of something to say to Misato and failing, because there was nothing that could make this any better except proof it wasn't so.

Then Kaji grabbed her hand. "Come on, I need your help," he said, pulling her out of the room, making her stumble up and down the rocky hills to Misato's Eva. "You can open this thing up, right?" he asked, knocking on the entry plug after clambering up the Eva.

Ritsuko hesitated, because opening it up here meant dumping LCL on the ground, but… Misato… "We can get in with her."

If all they could do was be there for her, than that was what they were going to do.

* * *

_Yeah, Misato has friends, chibiTabris no can has. _


	8. Absent From Us

_In this 'verse, everyone would know that as soon as the last (normal) angel's gone, they'll be fighting human beings. Or rather, the last angel will have human support, and if they manage to kill it then SEELE will go to war to get Adam, Lilith and the Evas so they can do Third Impact without him. And of course the true believers would view it as a war of vengeance, just like the people who want revenge on SEELE for Second Impact. Tabris is SEELE's nuclear deterrent-equivalent & shield against that kind of attack: knowing that he could make what's left of the world go boom is the reason it's 'just' border conflicts instead of all-out war on SEELE. Once he's dead?_

_That's a recipe for war crimes. Lots and lots of them – even in regular Eva, they were shooting civilians because it was that damn serious, and those soldiers were just trying to save the world, they weren't also running on hatred and vengeance. There's a reason the fall of Hitler's capital is called The Rape of Berlin. And no one in Allied command gave a damn, after what they'd seen, except one guy who had the balls to call Stalin on it. From a moral standpoint, not a 'poor German civilians, they don't deserve this' standpoint. Did you know that the word slave comes from Slav? And that was basically the Third Reich's opinion of that race. _

* * *

Shinji tentatively knocked on the door to Misato's wing.

"Come in!"

"Ritsuko?" he asked, opening the door. "What are you doing here?"

She looked up from the gadget-strewn coffee table at him. "Technically, I live here," she reminded him, pushing back her long brown hair. That was also a surprise: she normally had it tied up in a bun or some French style so stray strands didn't fall into whatever she was working on.

"Well, but…"

"Don't worry about it," she told him. "I know what you mean, I was just being hard on you. I've been gone so long our cats barely recognize me. I'm moving them to the lab to keep Rei company. If you were looking for Misato, she's in my home lab making another letterbomb to mail to Kaji, or I presume that's what she's doing since she hasn't had much other reason to grin lately."

"I was actually looking for Asuka." He needed to at least try to make peace with her.

"She's staying over at her friend's place: I thought she told you. The Horaki family evacuated, but they couldn't take Hikari." Not when she was a potential pilot. "They were worried about her being home alone, since so many empty houses attract looters, so Asuka volunteered to move in with her for now."

Shinji knew it was mean, but he couldn't keep from heaving a huge sigh of relief.

"Come on, don't cry, she'll be back eventually," Ritsuko said, voice dripping with sarcasm. "Don't worry about it. I'm not Ka… I'm not Misato. I'm not one of the people who wants you, Asuka and Rei to be the next generation of, well, us. The hot-blooded female pilot, the rogue – well, ninja in your case – and the one who does all the work." She sighed. "I can't say I'm not disappointed too, but Asuka did the right thing getting out of here. Misato's been trying to push her at you, which is obviously because she just lost Kaji, and it was driving Asuka up the wall since you're not Kaji, even if she wishes she was Misato."

"Oh, so that's why she's been avoiding me when she hasn't been yelling at me," Shinji said, trying not to feel that Misato doing that to his technically-adopted-niece was a good thing because dealing with Asuka was exhausting at the best of times, just exhausting in a fun way.

Fun… he hadn't even thought that word, much less had any, in how many months now?

"By the way, Hyuga wants to talk to you. He'll probably be taking over your training now that Kaji's gone." That was a relief to Ritsuko: Shinji needed something to do besides pilot and mope, especially now that school was cancelled. At least attending had been a distraction. Hyuga had a crush on Misato since before he came to work for them: if he wanted to try to step into Kaji's shoes more power to him, provided someone managed to make them dead man's shoes.

"Oh."

"Well, that was… absolutely neutral, meaning you'd be looking forward to it if you weren't so depressed." His effectively-big-sister looked him up and down. "Well, it's not like medication would do you any good right now, even if we could put you on any without it lowering your sync ratio. A situation like this would depress anyone, and medication is like a bandage on a wound: it doesn't help if you keep getting stabbed on the heart." Misato's metaphor: those years in what amounted to solitary confinement made her come down with clinical depression… right after she got out, when she didn't have reason to be depressed anymore.

Shinji turned his head away. "I just… I feel like… I can't do anything. I want to run away all the time, but there's nowhere to run to."

Ritsuko nodded. "Sounds about right."

"Aren't you supposed to reassure me or something?" Shinji felt a little gypped. He'd worked up the courage to tell her that, and that was all he got?

She stared at him. "What? Do you want me to pat you on the head and tell you everything will be okay like you're still five? My best friend lost her husband, I lost my village idiot, my adoptive daughter thinks we'll all stop loving her someday soon, _Misato's _adoptive daughter is heartbroken, _you're _miserable, all three of you are going out there and nearly getting killed and I have to patch up the battle damage, so I know just how close they keep getting because my Evas aren't good enough to keep you safe: This sucks. Misato, your dad: everyone feels like they aren't doing enough, because we want to think that we can fix this if we just do it right, and then we'll all be okay.

"I want to run away to New Silicon Valley, or go into the Magi crawlspaces and just never come out. Feeling like you're not doing anything because you wish you could do more, wanting this not to be happening or wishing it was as easy to fix as fleeing: if you didn't feel that way, I'd know you'd gone off your rocker. You want to run, Asuka wants something to kill to make it all better. I want this to be as easy to fix as my Magi. Sorry, but the way you're feeling is perfectly normal. None of us are feeling any better, and none of we adults –I still can't believe Misato qualifies as an adult now, it's still terrifying – have any magic advice to make you feel better and become able to just wave a wand and fix everything. You feel this way because you're not delusional, not because you need to grow up and quit whining. Life is pain: anyone who says it can be any other way is trying to convert you to SEELE."

"So this isn't because I'm weak or not good enough, is that what you're trying to tell me?"

"You're not disappointing anyone who knows what the hell they're talking about. You've pulled off some things that impressed me _and _Misato." Who had piloted for years. "Keep pushing yourself. Keep demanding better of yourself, because we need every bit of everything we can get. But as long as we keep winning, you're doing fine. If you're not doing fine, it will be obvious by the way the world's ending." Ritsuko's smile was evil.

"Uh… Right. I'll go see if Hyuga can get free now." He could at least schedule an appointment with Kaji's replacement's secretary.

* * *

Instead of Shinji being allowed in to Hyuga's office, the young officer came out. "Ah, Shinji, come with me."

"Alright." What was this now, Shinji wondered.

Hyuga looked nervous, eyes darting from side to side behind his glasses despite how secure this building was supposed to be. Who was he looking out for. "I'm sorry, but there's… something you should… something we need you to look at."

"From Kaji?" Shinji asked, and Hyuga winced. "Sorry, right." Kaji had become the Intelligence Divison's version of Voldemort, he who must not be named, their biggest failure and now their most dangerous potential enemy, because he knew _exactly _how they did things. Kaji was as big a role model for these guys as Misato was for pilots: for _him _to have been a mole? Oh, some of them must hope that this was a trick too, but Shinji really wasn't getting his hopes up.

"I'm afraid not," Hyuga told him, taking out his keycard to get through a door, and another door. "Please don't tell Misato. She didn't want you to see these, but the abominations are coming closer and closer together. We may not have all that much time left before…" He stopped at a table. "We opened them, of course, but they've been put back together in the original configuration just in case there's any clues in that." In how someone sealed an envelope? Not likely, but…

"Embassy correspondence?" Shinji asked, looking at the outer bags. Just like Kaji's letters to Misato. Waylaying embassy correspondence and reading it was a big deal, even on Misato's say-so. "For me?"

The new chief inspector didn't say anything, just looked far too young, embarrassed, helpless and trapped for it to be anything but an act, practically begging Shinji not to make him explain any more.

"If it's from my biological father, I'm out of here," Shinji said finally, picking the one on the right, which should be the first one up and undoing the seal.

The return address on the envelope was the embassy, because it wasn't like anything official could be shipped into SEELE territory without going through them: if it had to be returned, the person to return it to was the ambassador. Since Shinji doubted he'd be here for party invitations, he looked at the part with his address next. That didn't tell him anything but where he lived, which he already knew.

"That's the ambassador's secretary's handwriting," Hyuga volunteered.

There was a wax seal on the back: Shinji had seen enough official letters to know what those were, and that this wasn't SEELE's. Glancing at Aoba, who didn't look like he wanted to identify it for Shinji, he tried to pry it up without wrecking it too badly.

This was Kaworu's handwriting… calligraphy. Shinji scrawled, Kaworu had penmanship, even if all he had was a pencil and a few seconds to leave a note for someone. He used kanji whenever possible because he liked to: Shinji had always figured it was half because of his family (the one he didn't actually have and abominations wouldn't care) and half because Kaworu liked beautiful things.

Even if this was just a sheet of paper with the date, time, contact information… Shinji was suddenly seized by a kind of panic he hadn't felt in a long time: He'd forgotten the recital! He'd completely forgotten it! Not just late, missed! Had they tried to get in contact with him and been turned away because Shinji didn't even know their names, so how could they get put on the safe list? Shinji couldn't keep a cell phone or cell number for more than a couple days because those could be used to track people, and Tabris was watching the networks. Kaworu was the one who handled this stuff, all Shinji had to do was hand the time and address to his driver.

Were they able to find a replacement violinist and cellist? On that kind of notice, when they were doing an original piece?

"Is there a code?" Hyuga asked hopefully, even though he certainly knew what this was about.

"No," Shinji said, even though he could read more from it than just the event information. Kaworu hadn't tried to explain anything: he'd known that Shinji wouldn't want to hear excuses. But even though he was Tabris, even though they weren't going to be friends anymore, he'd still tried to do that one last duty as Shinji's partner/agent/… friend. It wasn't even signed, so the sight of the false name or the real one wouldn't bother Shinji, and there wasn't a greeting, because Tabris was certainly not allowed to call Shinji by his first name like they were friends. For him to address him more formally would be admitting, confirming that there was this barrier between them now, but not putting anything was rude. So no wonder Kaworu had tried to write it like an event notice, and… no, he couldn't picture Kaworu agonizing over it. He'd never seen Kaworu worried. While other musicians jittered or acted like Asuka before big performances, Kaworu was always calm, like this was nothing, because this was what he did to relax.

And that probably was true, huh. Of Tabris, too.

Well, maybe, there was the thoughtful expression he'd had when Shinji invited him to Shinji's home for the first time, and before he walked in the door: in retrospect, Shinji realized that was how he looked when he was steeling himself for something that could be very unpleasant. To understate it. Accepting that there was a disaster waiting to happen, and he was about to walk into the frying pan but he would do it anyway.

He would have written this, even thinking that Shinji might throw it away because it came from him, or he might get a response not from Shinji but from Professor Fuyutsuki, a cold 'stay away from my son.' Or Misato's death threats, but he would be used to those, wouldn't he?

It didn't hurt, to look at this. It made Shinji ache. Almost like phantom limb syndrome, all the people who lost arms and legs in the wars. Feeling the pain of something that was missing. Not feeling pain _because _it was missing, but feeling as though the missing piece was in pain.

Next letter.

"_Don't worry,_ _I asked someone to find replacements and send them the sheet music, just in case." _Just in case what? In case Shinji didn't get the message in time? In case Shinji didn't want to go? Wouldn't they need a replacement violinist, no matter what? This raised the possibility that they might _not _have needed a replacement violinist.

"There's a PS on the back of that one."

It was clearly meant for the Intelligence Division as well: "(_I've been promised that neither of them will know who hired them. I don't want anyone else to get in trouble because of this.)"_ For musicians to be dragged in and interrogated just for accepting a job or knowing Kaworu well enough to ask him (and Shinji) to play. For more people's lives to be disrupted.

A third.

"_I thought you should know that the performance went well. I'm sorry you weren't there." _That he'd taken that away from Shinji, even if it was just one night, a little applause. But at least he'd made sure Shinji knew that he hadn't ruined it for the others.

"We're investigating how he knew that – just shadowing the attendees, no interrogations." Even though that was useless, since they'd know they would be watched if they were agents.

"Thank you, Hyuga," Shinji said almost automatically as he went to the next one.

"_I hope that you're still willing to do performances. I know you liked playing with a group and knowing that they enjoyed our music," _even if Shinji was shy and didn't like to talk to strangers. "_I would send you the names and numbers of everyone you've played for before, but I'm worried that they might get dragged into this, so I can't just send them." _Put their names and numbers in the hands of an Intelligence Division scrambling to cover their asses for no good reason. _"Please let me know if you'd like them." _

The first request for a response, Shinji saw.

The next package was bulkier: Shinji drew sheaves of sheet music out of the folder inside, and had to reach inside it again to find the note that had slipped to the bottom. "_These are some pieces I like that I was thinking of learning eventually," _with Shinji. "_I thought they might lighten your heart. I hope you get well soon." _

Shinji knew without checking the date that these were from the second time he'd been hospitalized.

There was some space before the next paragraph: _"I wish I could fight beside you, but I can't take that risk. Not when I am the vessel of our father's soul." _Not when another abomination merging with him might trigger Third Impact, and even though Tabris was created from Adam in humanity's image, humanity might get obliterated instead of absorbed.

More space, and, "_I suppose, if you're still willing to read this,_" if Shinji wasn't too angry at Kaworu saying, at Tabris lying and saying that he wished he could help his enemy. By Kaworu finally admitting in these letters that he was Tabris, was an abomination. Had been one all along. "_I should tell you that Kaji is alright, and I assigned him to something that doesn't involve the UN. (I'm sure there are indications otherwise, but they're disinformation. Or trolling.)" _Kaji was still Kaji, then. "_He keeps sneaking the bombs into my office after he extracts Misato's letters. I think he was a bit disappointed that he didn't get in trouble for it the first time. Everyone assumed it was someone else making sure I was staying in practice, even though normally they're more careful not to set fire to the letters. I think Kaji thought they were paperwork." _

That made Shinji's eyes widen a little. If someone set a bomb off in Dad's office they would never see daylight again, even after the interrogation, and security heads would roll. When he thought about it, it made sense with the AT field, but for Tabris' security staff to be so blasé about bombs going off around him? They did it unannounced, to make him practice?

That was a funny thought, on the one hand: he could imagine Kaworu smiling and looking up, watching fragments of paper drift down and ignoring the ones that caught in his hair. On the other, Tabris was so important that to be willing to take a risk like that they really did have to think he was invincible, didn't they. It made him kind of worried, not about the bombs but what it meant that people would set bombs off near him without any warning for training. Had they fired guns at him? Everyone was so certain that N2 mines wouldn't harm him: had they _tested _that? Not just Misato, but his own side?

"_Maya was a little upset when he said the bomb came from your house: she's a great admirer of Ritsuko's work, but I'm sure Ritsuko knows that." _Since Tabris only fought to defend territory SEELE had already taken, in order to avoid escalating the wars, Dr. Maya Ibuki was SEELE's offensive hacker. She did everything she could to screw up the UN's logistics, trying to keep them too scrambled to effectively fight a modern war. She was a great believer in the idea that humans shouldn't kill other people, which really made Shinji wonder how she'd ended up with SEELE after Second Impact, but a lot of other people had been seduced by SEELE's promises of no more war, no more death.

"Ibuki works with Tabris personally," was all Shinji could get out of that, which made sense. "Or they're colleagues, which makes sense. We know he can monitor our networks." Shinji paused. "And he's noticed that Maya seems to think of herself and Ritsuko as star-crossed fated lovers," doomed to be divided by their loyalties until the Promised Day brought everyone together. "But who hasn't?"

"Most people. She's not _that _obvious about her feelings, you know," Hyuga told Shinji, sounding relieved that Shinji was up to giving them information.

Shinji just shrugged. "We know Tabris gets reports on border defense and things like that, so he has paperwork, but Kaji would know he doesn't do any. Unless that's changed. Or he might just be being whimsical and not have any real reason to think Kaji thought that, other than that they were papers and on his desk, so…" Shinji shrugged, knowing he shouldn't explain the joke since it was just a little one. "I think he was hoping Misato would read this, though. Did she?"

"No. She said she wished we could just destroy them." But no. Just no. They needed intel like this.

That was all on the 'Get Well Soon' letter, so Shinji went to the next one.

"He finally cracked," was what Shinji said, trying to hide behind the 'game' of thinking this way. Thinking about why people would want to kill him and what they might do, what Shinji gave away with everything he said. All the clues about them in what other people said and how they moved.

"_Shinji, I'm worried. You probably aren't even getting these, knowing Misato," _how she placed herself and her Eva between him and her partners. "_But please, whoever is reading these, someone should be keeping a closer eye on Shinji's health. I'm sure they are monitoring it, and I'm sure Ritsuko is doing her best, but… I'm sorry, Shinji. If I was paying attention, if I'd moved faster, if I hadn't talked you into attending that party for a bit in hopes that you would understand that what you did wasn't just something that was expected of you but something worth celebrating, I wouldn't have taken someone away from your home. I like you, please believe that, and I didn't mean to take away one of the things that helped you forget your soul's loneliness. I find myself almost hoping that I didn't take away two. Or three, if I really did destroy the power of song to heal your soul. I'd hoped that you would attend the recital to show that you were going to go on just like always, that you'd make the effort to track them down as a show of strength. You are far more stubborn and determined than you believe, Shinji. Yet I know that what happened must have affected you, and if you did not use anger to hide from the pain, then you must feel it. _

"_I want to promise that I will take away everyone's pain, for your sake as well, and all you need to do is hold on a little longer because that might make you angry at me. Angry enough to forget your pain long enough to sleep, eat, fight, reclaim your cello… You aren't taking care of yourself, Shinji, I know you well enough to see that in how you move and where you move. You've stopped guarding yourself against attack because you don't care anymore. I can't ask you to care for my sake anymore, but think about Misato, how worried she must be about you. How worried your dad, Ritsuko, Asuka and Rei must be. How worried Kaji is, because he's the one who showed me the footage. Even though I'm sure they would consider me an abomination as well, because Adam was forced to bring me forth, I could not forgive myself if one of my brothers or sisters killed you._

"_Please, take care," _and it was sighed Kaworu Nagisa first, and under that Tabris, in Hebrew.

"And the rest are thinly disguised worrying," Shinji could guess, trying not to be touched and muddled up by it. Kaworu would know better than to nag, but he would try.

"Except for the latest," Aoba told him. "We can't be sure because it has a lock that says it can only be opened by you. We're not sure what kind of lock it is, although we tried mock-ups of your hands and cornea and also tried one of your blood samples."

"Well, there are two angels left to go, so now would be a bad time to hurt me," Shinji knew, since they were getting more and more powerful. That didn't cheer him up any. Kaworu didn't intrude, and that was part of why everyone let him in, closer than Shinji though he would ever let anyone who wasn't family.

Maybe it was Kaworu that was his Kaji: the friendly traitor? That liked him, like Kaji genuinely liked Misato?

Wincing, he reached for the bag and heard a click as soon as he grasped the metal table inside. When he opened the bag, the device had opened, revealing a compartment just big enough for the sheet of paper it may have been created to hold.

"_Kaji is dead. _

"_Tell Misato I will find the one who did this, who took his soul from you and all of his fellow Lilim, and hand them over to her." _


	9. Search & Research

"Maya's work_,_" was Ritsuko's instant assessment of the case. "I'd have to examine it to be sure, but most likely it identified you by your AT field." Saying AT field was so much more scientific than 'light of the soul.'

"How did they get that information? You haven't even managed that kind of precision yet," Misato asked.

Ritsuko shrugged. "Tabris, most likely. I haven't bothered to develop a lock like this since we're already aware that angels can hide their fields and make them hard to read. He could have imitated Shinji's field, and then no one here could open it but Shinji or possibly Rei." Although they weren't letting Rei anywhere near anything that originated from her big brother, just in case someone tried to prove that they were conspiring. "Now that I think about it," she realized, still turning over the case. "It's odd that other angels can change their shapes but Tabris needed to disguise himself. I wonder if he can't change out of that semi-human form? Rei hasn't managed to, but I've wondered if that's because she's afraid that she won't be able to change back. Still, you'd think that she'd want to be able to look more normal."

"Finding out if he has a weakness later," Misato said, because good thinking. "Information now."

"Ritsuko?" Shinji handed a piece of paper out to her, looking even more unhappy than he had recently. She'd walked right by him, assuming they'd called her here for the unique-looking case, since that was what they'd said over the phone.

Ritsuko stared at it. She hadn't really believed it could happen, somehow. They'd made it through so much, the young immortals, and even when Misato was no longer perfect, couldn't pilot, they were still… Ritsuko'd feared for her own life, and thought that Kaji was damn insane and going to get her killed often enough, but she'd gone along with the latest crazy scheme because it was Kaji and he'd get her out of wherever it was by the skin of his teeth or easy as pie. They'd come home okay. Maybe it was realizing that Tabris, the powerful abomination, the one who could mindrape them, the one they'd been far more afraid of than all the people with guns, actually had no desire whatsoever to kill Misato, or anyone for that matter. It became a game of almost-mock heroes and villains, where the real goal, the real means of keeping score, were how many UN troops or SEELE 'mooks' didn't die because they pulled out of the area when Misato was going to fight, or Kaji and Ritsuko managed to get some vital piece of intelligence somewhere in time. SEELE was shooting to kill, and there were plenty of bullets flying and bombs going off that didn't care who they hit, but…

Hindsight was anything but twenty-twenty. After having to send kids only a couple of years younger than they'd been back then out to fight, not knowing if they would come back alive or maimed or not, Ritsuko had started to feel nostalgia for the days when _she _was the one in danger, not the kids. The battles they'd gotten out of okay, in the end.

Now Kaji was dead.

"I am going to go through the Intelligence Division. Then I am going to the UN capital. If this is our op, I will find out who is responsible for this," Misato told them. "My guess is that Tabris will make sure his own house is clean first, but if he starts going after our intelligence people, we're in trouble." Because if Tabris was angry enough, and this looked far more furious than she'd ever seen him, he was an abomination. He could mindrape people. And he would pass information on to SEELE if it would save the lives of his people. They could lose every single infiltrator because of this. More and more information would be compromised the longer it took to find Kaji's killer.

Her husband's killer.

But first, she was going to go home and cry.

That _bastard_. Hadn't she told him that no one was allowed to kill him but her? He _knew _to tell her when he was in danger!

Wait a minute.

He did.

Misato considered the odds that this had blindsided Kaji and felt very glad all of a sudden that she'd been a romantic idiot and kept all of his letters instead of throwing them in the trash for the Intelligence Division or ritualistically burning them with his own cigarette lighter, which he'd sent with the second to last of the daily letters.

Wait.

At the time, it had seemed like he was just making exaggerated promises and a stupid reference to that old, "Addicted to Love," song, but Kaji? Quitting cold turkey? Her Kaji? He couldn't go two days without…

Yes, she realized. He'd known. He'd known that he was dying, he'd known the day and he had to know who. If he'd sent her one message, what else had he sent? "Shinji," she told him, "I'm going to need your help."

"This is bad," Shinji said, eyes wide.

"I know."

"This is really, really bad." He averted his eyes. "Misato, I can't read any more of this, I really can't." Not after studying music, even though it was Kaworu who was the singer, who loved to talk about the significance and effects of the lyrics and how beautiful songs could be.

His _eyes, _they _burned. _

"Suck it up, Shinji."

"Misato, seriously, I would rather climb into the Eva right now than read any more of this. I am a musician, I have actual training in how to write and analyze music. How to listen for bad rhythms and notes, and poetry is very similar to song." Every bit of horribleness was jumping right out at his trained mind. "You can _tell _that it's bad. I could write a _thesis paper_ on how bad it is. Please, sis, just give me the ones that _don't _have poetry."

"It's not _all _bad," Misato said in her husband's defense, and furtively looked around before pulling a piece of paper from her dresser drawer, daring Shinji to comment.

He took one look at it and said, "That's because Kaworu wrote this. Or rewrote it." Because a lot of the feelings that were expressed here were very Kaji, and definitely not things Shinji wanted Kaworu to think about _his sister_, forget Tabris the abomination, even if he might not have a real form with tentacles.

"You're sure?" Misato asked, somewhere between disappointed and intrigued.

He nodded. "I'm sure. We had to do original compositions, and he always wrote lyrics for his." Shinji knew his partner's style.

"Love songs?" his sister asked next.

"Some, but also sunset, sunrise, joy," Of course, as a tribute to his favorite. "He never wrote anything unhappy unless it was a request." Or for Shinji. "He never liked how those turned out, he said he couldn't understand them properly."

"Couldn't really comprehend the pain of loneliness, of Lilim existence, the pain we endure every day unless we manage to fight it off, to forget it by reaching out to others and imagining we can touch their souls," Misato said, looking down at the poem. "Tabris," she said, by way of explanation. "He didn't understand how I could be so strong, after losing my father, being locked up alone for so long. Well, it was painful. It was horrible. I know I lost track of time, and I… I lost words. I could speak when I was found, but I lost words because I didn't want to be able to think about what had happened. What was happening to me." To be able to understand how painful the loneliness really was. "They didn't torture me or anything, they just didn't talk to me, didn't do anything but feed and bathe me. And that was enough. I did go mad, losing language and thought is a form of madness since it meant I couldn't function, I was practically an animal. But words, I could get back, when people talked to me again. I could have started hallucinating people to talk to until I completely lost touch with reality, like sensory deprivation victims.

"Because of what SEELE did to me, I know exactly what they're talking about," she told Shinji. "Life is pain. Our default state, being without other people, is a living hell. But, you know, I'm alive. I survived that pain. And people who have never experienced anything at all like that, people who knew that loneliness is torture and still _did that to me_, have no right to talk. I broke, Shinji. I did break, just like they wanted me to. Then I picked up the pieces, and now I have a home, a family. I pursued happiness, and I damn well caught it. Even though the pain of my soul is inevitable and I've also got my body trying to tell me that I'm miserable, I'm hanging in there. My husband is dead, and I'll cry, I'll cry a hell of a lot, then I'll pick myself up and I'll live. And you will too," she told her little brother. "You're still fighting. We're going to get through this because we aren't giving up, not like all those people who joined SEELE. Not like the angels. Tabris is the toughest there is, and he can't even understand what makes us fight for our future despite the pain. So somehow, someway, we aren't going to let him get to Lilith." Misato's eyes narrowed. "It's SEELE I'm really worried about, because they'll be coming for us next, and if Tabris scans half our intelligence and military before that happens, they'll know way too damn much." The UN had numbers, but knowledge was a power all its own.

Still, as long as there was life there was hope, there would be a light at the end of the tunnel, all those clichés. …Ah.

"It is better to light a candle than to curse the darkness," Misato quoted, picking up the lighter and putting it in her breast pocket (Kaji would have wanted it that way), "and even better to light a flamethrower. Let's go borrow Ritsuko's hammer."

"He always thought he was James Bond and I was Q," Ritsuko said, most of her attention focused on typing away at the one computer in the secure room deep within the fortress connected to the outside world while Misato, Shinji and Rei each looked through a third of the decrypted files on the microdot, sorting them while they tried to figure out what was… Well, all of this was important. Gendo's semi-heretic fraction of SEELE was practically impossible to get intel on, but he couldn't keep out Tabris' own agent, not when he had the entire council's backing because they were about a hair's breath away from having him put up against the wall and shot. If it weren't for the Committee saying they still needed him until all the other angels were gone?

That wasn't all that was on here: Kaji had been researching SEELE doctrine for a long time, even longer than Misato and Ritsuko knew. Scans, documents, a log of notes and thoughts that was practically a diary: with all the image files, that made up most of the data on the microdot. Shinji asked for the files on his father and his experiments, Misato took the data on SEELE and the smaller sections, while Ritsuko asked Rei to look over the research on abominations/angels in case there was anything she would find helpful, and just in case he'd hidden something there.

"Gendo's the obvious suspect, but Tabris would at least try to use normal methods before he starts breaking into people's heads," Misato knew. "So if it was Gendo we might know in… two more days?"

"I do not believe Gendo Ikari is the only one with a motive to kill Mr. Kaji," Rei said, the light of the screen reflecting from red eyes.

"You mean besides the intelligence agencies of both main power blocs and all the nations?" Misato asked her.

"I found files pertaining to my creation as you requested, Aunt Misato, but the specifications were oddly exact. Genetic data related to Yui aside, Gendo wished to ensure that I met certain exact criteria in order to allow me to merge with Unit 01, as opposed to either of the progenitors," although Unit 01 was made from the carved-up body of Lilith, it contained none of the brain. "In a certain exact fashion. According to Kaji, it was labeled heretical by SEELE not because it did not match the Dead Sea Scrolls, but because it would not bring about proper complementation and would grant instrumentality to only one. That implies that there is more than one potential outcome of Third Impact, and the outcome can be determined by the nature and procedure of the merging."

"That's true, Rei," Ritsuko told her. "If an angel merged with Adam, humanity would be reduced to raw materials instead of having our minds absorbed."

"And the race of that angel would become the dominant race on the planet." She turned around to look at Ritsuko. "Tabris is not human, correct?"

Everyone looked at Shinji for some reason. He stared back: what were the experts looking at him for? But they kept waiting for something.

His immediate response was no, Tabris wasn't, but Kaworu was so kind, and, and humane, but, "People aren't like that. He's, he, he… he cares. He cares about other people. I can't say what all humans are like, I don't really know that many," being antisocial, "but everyone reacted differently to Kaworu than other people. People just knew that he cared, even about people he'd just met, so you could trust him. Even though it turned out that he was lying to everyone," both about being Kaworu Nagisa and by looking human. Yes: looking human was a lie. "He's not human. That's even SEELE doctrine, isn't it? He was born of the white seed, unlike the false successors born of the black seed. They say he's an idealized version of us, sort of, but he's not like us." Maybe that was why Shinji watched him disappear into the smoke and knew that this was not someone that could be replaced. "So maybe if he merged with Adam we'd be replaced by a version upgrade, but isn't he supposed to merge with Lilith?"

"I am not certain that makes a difference. Gendo Ikari did not believe so when he made these alterations to Yui Ikari's original plan: he believed that creating me using genetic information from Adam instead of Lilith to disguise his intent and the soul of Lilith would not alter his planned instrumentality. On the other hand, much more deviation would alter the outcome, while SEELE's backup plan in case in case Tabris fails bears almost no resemblance to a simple combination of Tabris and Adam. Instead it is centered around a Lilim and it requires a portion of Lilith's body containing a Lilim soul, and multiple Eva units, one containing the soul of Adam and all of them directed by the will of Lilim. The angel that combines with the soul and body of different progenitors is the Eighteenth, the Lilim. Instead of all merging into a single being, it is necessary to shatter the mind of the Lilim at the center of the diagram during the process in order to ensure that all humans continue to exist as fragments of the divine. This is a very elaborate procedure for a back-up plan, and it has been refined over centuries, incorporating many different mystic traditions."

"While insert Tab T into Slot L is very simple," Ritsuko raised her head: now she smelled a rat too. "Cults like complicated rituals, but… If the progenitor's body and soul are really moot, and combining Eva 01 with you would have made Yui a god and all humans just parts of her while she went out into space, then are they intending to make Tabris into the god instead of Yui? Have him create a new world of half-humans were there won't be any war or loneliness because they don't possess those flaws? Misato?"

"Tabris would not go along with that."

"Kaworu won't destroy everyone's souls. He wants to save the people that are alive: he thinks that Second Impact was a tragedy, I know he has to." Even if they'd never talked about it. "He wouldn't want to combine with Lilith if he knew what it really did."

"Would he rather die?" Ritsuko asked Misato again, looking at Shinji as well now.

"Yes," both of them agreed. Tabris, Kaworu was pure-hearted like that.

"What would happen if he found out the truth ahead of time?" Ritsuko asked now. "When he's the one most of SEELE's followers really believe in. What would happen if the true believers find out that SEELE intends to sacrifice their god in order to move Adam's soul into a vessel made from Adam's flesh, so there isn't the risk of instrumentality being granted to the Seventeenth instead of an Eighteenth because there were two different descendant type inputs?"

"That's it. That was what Gendo was holding over the Committee's heads. He clearly knew the truth, so they had to keep Tabris away from him: that was how he could do so much under their noses, even make Rei," Misato knew. She'd learned a lot from Kaji too. "All he would have had to do is set up a dead man switch, something to broadcast the information to the web if he died, and unless SEELE found it first then they couldn't kill him without having a revolution on their hands."

"It would be just like what Dad did," Shinji said, meaning Professor Fuyutsuki. "The Committee would be hunted again." By the people they'd controlled before. "Kaji was investigating Gendo, right? So the committee could arrest him, lock him up, tell him that if he didn't keep the information from getting out until Tabris was already dead they'd kill him?"

Ritsuko and Misato looked at each other doubtfully in the dimly lit lab. "Gendo Ikari's a slippery one," Misato said.

"A manipulative bastard," Ritsuko agreed, pushing her unbrushed or bound hair back and scowling at the thought of her mother. "Kaji never could get the better of him." And he'd gotten the better of Fuyutsuki, Misato, Ritsuko, all of the UN and SEELE often enough. Suckered Tabris out of position several times, too.

"Then, if there was a lot of confusion, wouldn't that delay things? Two more angels to go, even if they knew they had to kill Kaji," Shinji said, and swallowed. Asuka, Asuka was going to cry. Shinji couldn't, not now, or Misato would start. "They can't do anything before they're gone, right?"

"If they still exist, their souls have more power than those of Lilim. They could appear and hijack the instrumentality, causing them to become the gods and their race the owner of this world," Rei agreed. "I suspect that is why Gendo Ikari has of yet made no move to acquire me and force me to merge with Unit 01."

"Even after they're dead, it will take him some time to get here unnoticed, with the UN and SEELE watching for him," Misato thought, leaning back. "If he needs to come here personally, he'd have to leave in advance if he wants to get here soon after the last angel dies… And if Tabris thinks Gendo killed Kaji, then he would be hunting for Gendo as well… We'll have to ask Dad, but I bet that bastard's on his way, and SEELE lost track of him. What do you think, Shinji?"

"If, if it was me, and this was someone I cared about, I wouldn't take any chances." No. And Shinji was not Gendo. "He might have left when the last angel we fought died, if they're using that as a timetable." Third to last, before Tabris.

"They gave us some information on the angels when they handed over Adam," to let the UN wipe themselves out fighting the angels, not out of the goodness of their hearts, Misato knew. "SEELE would love to use Tabris against Gendo. Rits?"

"Let me see which you're looking at, Rei…" That file. Ritsuko transferred it onto her stick and then to the only networked computer and resumed typing. "I'll get this and the gist of the theory over to Maya. She'll have a way to get it to Tabris' attention without SEELE knowing what it is, and he can verify it better than we can." And scanning SEELE meant he wasn't scanning UN personnel. "What the… _Kaaaaji!" _Ritsuko growled as the cursor began to move on its own. "I haven't… And…" Tabris, and even if he'd made it past the Magi to identify this computer, he shouldn't know what they were talking about unless someone had broken in and installed a microphone into her rig, who else could have done that? Oh? "That's all? Just 'Please ask Misato and Shinji to please come to the Embassy with you?'" Maybe he wasn't listening in to the conversation, then.

"We'll have to drive over to Tokyo-2," but it should be worth it. "I'll put on the siren," Misato decided. "Shinji, get showered and changed. You look like something the cat dragged in. As for you two, you're just covered in cat hair," she told Rei and Ritsuko."Get changed."

"Are we going to a funeral?" Ritsuko asked. "Why are we dressing up for someone who's seen us covered in LCL, muck, sand…"

"That was before you adopted his little sister," Misato reminded her, "and before he met Shinji. We have to fake being adults now. Think about it: would _you _trust yourself with Rei?"

Ritsuko paused. "I _think _I've still got a little black dress that fits. Somewhere." She still had all her jewelry and so on, but there wasn't much point in dressing up for an internet not-girlfriend.


	10. Give Me a Child

_Since someone asked: I keep having Naoko in Unit 00 because I like the idea and I'm writing AUs anyway, so I can do narratively shiny things if I want to._

_It's hard for me to get into the heads of characters I dislike, but I need to make the effort more. _

_Part of this verse is that SEELE actually bothered to try to ensure that Tabris actually shared their beliefs, since they were aware that he would be exposed to outside influences they couldn't control and such. Cults are good at that kind of programming, which is why this version of Tabris actually has less understanding of the value of human freedom and such than canon. However, that kind of... mental pruning somewhat squicks me, so I have trouble writing it well. Still, I was told I should make the effort._

* * *

Even when he was an infant, Tabris never cried.

At first the doctors thought it was simply because his angelic nature protected him from most of the trials of infants, like colic and being woken up from the hours upon hours of sleep a brain seeing the world for the first time needed by gnawing hunger, left simultaneously starving and exhausted.

At first he was silent except for happy sounds, but then it seemed he realized that no, they didn't have the power of angels to know his thoughts and needs, and started waving his hands and legs in the air while making sounds to get their attention, to be fed or changed or simply picked up and carried around for a bit.

Keel avoided the infant angel at this stage, especially after getting a report that one of the doctors had actually let Tabris keep sleeping in his lap while the doctor worked on his reports instead of putting him back in the hermetically sealed enclosure when the angel grasped at his coat (_months _ahead of when it should have been able to do that) and made a pleading sound, already half asleep from being carried around and rocked. What the angel seemed to have wanted was to fall asleep with company, and when an angel would have so many means of getting what they wanted, including mental influence?

That doctor was labeled too vulnerable and transferred to another project. Afterwards, the others tried to maintain their detachment, but despite how unsettling the infant angel looked at first (and newborn infants weren't a pretty sight to begin with), it was hard for them not to be won over to some degree. Of course, Keel wasn't going to entrust this to anyone who wasn't a loyal member of SEELE, and this was not only a True Successor, born of the white moon instead of the black, but one born from human DNA. Purified with the soul of Adam. A holy being, already almost a god itself.

So if the child seemed too perfect to be true, too well-behaved, too sweet? It was because he was too good to be a _Lilim _child. It was an example of what humanity could be once purified, once elevated by instrumentality to the level of the divine. Once complementation made it possible to exist without hurting others, without living in constant suspicion and fear of being hurt.

This was confirmation that something greater really could be born from the corrupted Lilim, debased humanity. If this angel succeeded, humanity as it was would be destroyed, but it would be recreated in this image. Immortal, powerful, pure children of the White Moon, and this child would be the equally benevolent god of the new Earth, or so those he was surrounded by believed. Keel wasn't going to risk him discovering the truth, after all.

They would have kept him sheltered away from the corrupting influence of the world until it was time for him to go. For him to be sacrificed, its nature too pure for the Lilim world. Despite its power, it would fall at the hand of Man, unwilling to kill even such base vermin.

It would have been secreted away, no, enshrined until that time came.

Then that fool Gendo let one of the scientists Yui suborned ruin everything.

SEELE could have fled into hiding: they'd done it before, after all. Hiding from witch-hunters, hiding from the Twentieth century's desire to learn the secrets of the occult first to conquer the world (a thousand-year Reich? When the world had less than a century left?) and then seeking cheap and easy enlightenment. They _did _flee into hiding: they hadn't abandoned a long tradition of making sure they could escape, and take their precious secrets and relics with them so they didn't fall into the hands of unbelievers.

That wouldn't be enough this time, however. Perfect instrumentality and complementation, the union of all souls in paradise and the godhood of humanity required the construction of specialized Eva units. Which required infrastructure, and personnel all in one place instead of scattered all over the world. Now that the world knew the truth, they wouldn't be able to infiltrate or suborn governments, build more Evas under the pretext of building those countries or the UN war machines to fight each other or the angels. So they would need a facility of their own.

What was to keep the UN from destroying that facility? From crushing it with armies or bombarding it from orbit? How would they defend their Eva production site from the world?

That was when the Council recalled that angelic child and the light of his soul. The power surpassed by no other angel on this planet save for broken Adam. He could serve as their unbreakable shield.

Their unbreakable shield, but not their unstoppable weapon. Not with that compassion, that lack of awareness of why any being would want to hurt others in the first place. If they forced the angel to kill he would ask _why_, and SEELE couldn't afford that. If even an angel doubted them, it would undermine the morale of their members. It would outright destroy it if a Son of Adam declared that Second Impact was unforgiveable, and the False Successors of the Black Moon did not deserve to rise above their base natures, could never be purified, never deserve godhood.

So, Keel knew, looking at the antique timepiece on the desk he didn't need, buried deep in the mountains, he would have to expose himself to the angel after all, and before it was old enough that he could count on it having learned that it was 'wrong' to listen to the thoughts of Lilim. Every word the old man said would have to be the honest truth, just in case.

That didn't mean he couldn't lie, but he didn't intend to lie. SEELE's doctrine was the truth and the only truth, the only way for mankind to survive and realize its destiny. To become more than worms crawling upon a rotting world, doomed to die. He just needed to make sure that the UN couldn't suborn the young angel, use its compassion and innocent drive to reach out to others against SEELE.

What the angel had learned and observed after leaving the lab would only be to Keel's advantage, he knew. He'd ordered its guardians to answer its questions about what was happening to SEELE honestly, despite their reluctance and the reports he'd received from them. Hearing about humanity's brutality, the lynchings and burnings had shocked and dismayed a being who did not know hatred. The children of the White Seed would take their turns seeking Adam even when all but the winner would be annihilated, because did not the most worthy race deserve to become the next god to rule this world? A god whose children would hopefully thrive, unlike the Lilim who were unable to evolve any further?

Surely they would wish each other luck, if not for the fact that it did not need to be said at all. Each angel in turn would pass all it had learned in its struggle on to the others as it died, hoping for their success instead of envying their survival.

So very, very unlike humans, who were even willing to kill billions of their own in order to survive.

Second Impact, he thought, touching the design of the sephiroth inlaid into the table. That was the first hurdle to be cleared. The angel could not imagine murdering others, not as it was now. Yet the prophecies stated that it would allow itself to be killed willingly. Obviously that was the way to make it accept the necessity of Second Impact: phrase it as billions of the Lilim sacrificing themselves so their kindred could live.

The fact that the inhabitants of the Southern hemisphere hadn't agreed to it and probably wouldn't have if asked wouldn't occur to the child, not when it would surely agree to die for the sake of others. Keel was certain he could make it see Second Impact as a tragedy, yes, but there was a world of difference between an unavoidable tragedy and mass murder. Between willing and unwilling human sacrifice.

A UN representative with the brains to try to approach the abomination instead of assuming it was evil and would not listen could point out that the Lilim hadn't chosen death, but if Keel insured ahead of time that the child thought that death was the _right _choice, the one any moral being would make (laying the groundwork for its defeat in time), then it would think that the enemy of SEELE was _insulting _the dead Lilim, implying that they would have _wanted _the whole world of seven billion people to die of their selfishness.

That was unlikely, though. When Fuyutsuki had shared so much information derived from the Eva project and research on Adam and then the media compounded it by distributing the most disturbing images of Tabris possible, the world had already seized on it as a symbol of Second Impact. The _combination _of Adam, the power that destroyed half the human world and would have sought to destroy all their souls if allowed to wake up on its own, and SEELE, the 'evil cult' that had supposedly brought doomsday closer instead of trading certain doom for the hope of instrumentality.

The old man snorted, the sound harsh and abrupt in the deep room, quiet save for the ticking of the clock. If they insisted that Tabris was evil, when the child barely grasped evil but already knew he wasn't it, not when one of the criteria for evil was the desire to harm others, they would establish themselves right away as not knowing what on earth or in heaven they were talking about.

No, the angel would feel sorry for those rendered irrational by grief and hatred. Yes, he should comfort the boy, or pretend to. Phrase it that way. Say no, it wasn't the Lilim's fault, they were just in pain because of their losses, and lashing out at everything around them.

If they only listened to Tabris, then they would know he wasn't evil. Likewise, if they only listened to the facts without hatred clouding their judgment, of _course _they would long for instrumentality and complementation. It was the only sane thing to desire, was it not? What sane person would want a short lifetime full of suffering followed by death when instead they could create a heaven on earth and become a god of it?

A good little angel would forgive them, would ignore all the cruel and hurtful things they said in their grieving madness instead of paying attention to them.

As Tabris protected SEELE, the ignorant masses would only grow to hate the little abomination more and more, until anyone who suggested making contact with it, much less letting it live, would be fired if they were _lucky _on suspicion of being a SEELE agent or having SEELE sympathies.

Which many did, after Fuyutsuki's information had spread. The doomsday prophecies that were the least secret part of the Secret Dead Sea Scrolls, since they spelled out why the Ascension of Man was necessary. When they were discovered, they had filled all of SEELE with terrible fear and terrible hope. Fear, because they faced a great trial, and if they failed even humanity's immortal souls, tainted and sinful as they were, would come to an end, just like in the End Times prophesized in the Book of Revelation. Oh, according to that prophet, the virtuous would be spared, but who on Earth was virtuous? No one, not one person. Even Jesus admitted he was not without sin: one could not be human without being a sinner.

Not one person until now, the child born from the White Seed after it was fertilized by humanity's tainted blood, that blood purified and incarnated in a new, pure soul. A soul whose light had deflected Adam's, shielding Earth from most of the blast as the enraged True Successor awoke, wounded and furious, and went out of control.

A good little angel would protect the people of SEELE for the sake of the other Lilim as well, so they could one day know complementation and never have to be hateful and alone anymore. So they could be purified of the hatred that was clouding their judgment and life forever in happiness.

Keel remembered learning the beliefs of his ancestors, of the faith that became SEELE after the discovery of the Secret Dead Sea scrolls, at his own father's knee.

"Give me a child until he is seven, and I will give you the man," was the maxim of the Jesuits who had hunted down many of Keel's tradition, although fortunately they had focused on the more recent heresies, the ones that spread aggressively instead of hiding and waiting for the Promised Day. For the day when what they needed to do to reach the Promised Day would be revealed to them.

Influence a child when he is forming his first impressions of the world and how it operates, and one will be able to make the lens he views the world through for the rest of his life. At first, SEELE had assumed an angel would be utterly uninterested in the debased Lilim and their world. Unrecognized and unchanneled, Tabris' curiosity might have influenced it in unexpected ways, perhaps even making it turn against them. The one benefit of allowing it out into the world was discovering that the world appealed to it. Forewarned was forearmed: the danger could now be prevented from coming to fruition with careful influence. As full of hubris as it was for a Lilim to think it could influence the mind of an angel, SEELE's goal was to defeat the angels and keep this world for themselves. No, not only that, but for the Lilim to become the equal of any angel!

For now, he would take advantage of its innate kindness and purity. Make sure the UN remained incomprehensible to it, and the common people's witch hunt for SEELE supporters even more so. Normal children were born selfish and had to have compassion for others beaten into them. Who among the UN would recognize the inverse of that in this child? Believe that it possessed innate goodness (the weakness that would kill it in the end) and SEELE was correct instead of mocking them? Except, of course, those who wanted to believe in SEELE, wanted to believe there was hope for humanity's future, that they weren't chained to dying bodies in a dying world.

Tell the angel child that of course it was their hatred making them ignore the truth that made them hate Tabris and the heaven of complementation. If they were only willing to look at the facts, or if they had the chance to experience it themselves, of _course _they would like the little angel and want complementation. Why would any sane person choose a short life full of pain? Why should Tabris listen to the arguments of people who were clearly insane?

The disguise attempt had born fruit, even though at first it was only to let them smuggle the angel from place to place more easily. If Tabris could learn to act properly enough to speak to crowds, appear in broadcasts, the angel might make a useful figurehead. A symbol, a rallying point for all those who wanted something more than the lonely death they were consigned to at birth.

This power, this purity, and humanity could possess it. Humanity could surpass it. SEELE had a benevolent angel watching over them: they'd _created _a benevolent angel. Their methods had worked and _would _work, provided they were able to construct the necessary Evas.

Yes: he'd have to see what his own tailor could do with the boy.

But as for what _he _could do with him?

The door finally opened, the boy ushered in by one of his men and Lorenz Keel smiled, pushing himself back from his desk. "Come here, Tabris. Did you enjoy your trip?" If the angel wanted to be picked up, better to do it himself first before it could occur to the angel to try to make him, but Lorenz rather doubted, in retrospect, that it had occurred to the angel that he would _need _to make anyone show 'human' kindness.

Tabris nodded, completely relaxed by the question and the smile despite how serious the man who escorted him here had been about this. Too innocent for his own good. Too trusting to be human, as he came around the desk and reached for Keel's hand, lifting himself up as Keel pulled since he was eager and didn't want the old Lilim to strain himself. He settled in Keel's lap easily and happily. "I saw so many things, and… Lorenz, do I have to go back to the lab?"

"No, my boy. We'll need to run tests, of course, to make sure that you're healthy," Keel said, patting pale grey hair. "Tell me, would you like to help us with a few things? We don't need your help quite yet, but training would keep you far too busy to spend much time in the lab."

Help? That brilliant smile said that he would clearly love to, and he snuggled up to Keel's chest. "Thank you, sir."

"There's no need for that, my boy. You're very dear to all of us." Yes: so very easy to take advantage of his trust and willingness to become close to others. Lorenz would need to take advantage of it now, first, before someone else managed to see what was right in front of their noses. Tried to lure SEELE's trump card to abandon them. "You can call me Lorenz, you know." The little angel smiled up at him, red eyes delighted as they were almost always.

As long as he wasn't too lonely, Tabris shouldn't be tempted to use its ability to encroach into others to read Keel, and thus the angel wouldn't know that his development and thoughts regarding other Lilim were being… guided. Or any of a number of other inconvenient truths. Like the one about raising this baby angel for the slaughter.

Trying to get Tabris to see everyone who argued for the other side as unreasonable and badly in need of a hug aside, the angel automatically invoked fear (after all, did not angels have to warn humans to, "Fear not," when they appeared to them) and this angel, between its form and its innate purity, also invoked love. The combination of the two was respect. While SEELE had always been a small, secret group, right now they _could _use more followers…

A gullible angel shining with inner kindness who wanted to reach out to Lilim to cheer them up and help them was a blessing indeed. Keel would still have preferred not _needing _to use Tabris thus, but hadn't he already proved that he would do whatever was necessary to attain instrumentality?


	11. The Prince and the Pilot

_Thanks to a tumblr resource collection blog, I finally found an explanation for why he's named Kaworu. It's fairly common knowledge that Nagisa can mean 'of the shore' or 'messenger,' but it's not actually a matter of writing it with different kanji: if you seperate out the parts of a kanji in Nagisa, you get those meaning messenger. So it's not a pun based on similar sound from an alternate spelling, but rather the meaning is already spelled out in the name, obvious to anyone who takes a good look at it._

_Kaworu is also a character-based code, but it's a letter substitution code. One of the very basic ways of encoding something, one I played with as a child, is to move every letter up one in the alphabet: A is replaced by B, B with C, and so on. So angel would become bohfm. _

_Why they use the 'wo' in Kaworu instead of spelling it Kaoru, a common name, has puzzled a lot of people. __However, take the Japanese word 'owari' and move the letters o-wa-ri each up one in the katakana alphabet, and you get Ka-wo-ru. _

_The entire name 'Kaworu Nagisa' is nothing but a childishly simple code for 'the final messenger.' _

_This has two implications, the first being that SEELE wasn't even bothering to try to fool Gendo (which I think is already obvious from his appearance, as I've said before) & the other being that instead of having a unique and eccentric first name that would indicate he had some input into his human identity (or someone at SEELE gave a damn about naming him anything other than Tabris), it was very clearly concieved as nothing more than a code name. That makes sense: they certainly wouldn't have wanted him to become invested in a human identity, nor start to think of himself as Kaworu instead of Tabris. Since Kaworu refuses to end the world, a first name meaning 'End' is... Yeah._

_However, in this 'verse, where Kaworu is doing his own disguising and identity-making, it ends up being very appropriate that it's a childish code because he _was _a child when he came up with it: he created that identity to study music years before he met Shinji, when he was at the age when that kind of hidden message seems clever. And, after all, if his name says what he is, then he isn't lying to anyone when he says, "I'm Kaworu Nagisa." Because he might as well be saying, "I'm the Final Messenger."_

* * *

He was dressed like Kaworu, even if that wasn't what he'd worn when Kaji escaped with him. Everything at Kaworu's address had been confiscated by the Intelligence Division. Shinji doubted this was what he wore at home, and it definitely wasn't what Tabris wore when he fought Misato or appeared in public as Tabris. So had he bought these, or had them bought for him, specially?

He was dressed like Kaworu, but his hair and skin were so pale, tinged with that grey and picking up the hue of the lights overhead. Maybe he'd look more human at sunrise or sunset, with all the reds and yellows giving him some color.

He almost looked like Kaworu's ghost, except he smiled and Shinji didn't know whether to say, "Sorry to make you wait so long," or, "Welcome back." Something lost and precious had returned to him, what was lost had been found, except Kaworu might still decide to leave again. Shinji might mess up and make him leave, so the relief was still mingled with worry.

That was when he accepted that Kaworu hadn't been a lie, that Tabris really was Kaworu, because if that wasn't so Kaworu didn't exist, Shinji couldn't get him back and that just wasn't an option. Even if Kaji was lost to Misato, Shinji couldn't give up when his, his partner was right in front of him. He just had to figure out how to make him _stay_. Stay Shinji's Kaworu.

"Excuse me: Is there a book or some other way I could learn to apply makeup like you did?" Rei asked before Shinji could think of what to say. "My experiments were not very successful." Partially because she'd tried caking on more and more so it stopped looking odd on her skin instead of blending, but then it just looked even odder.

"He's still wearing a little," Misato told Rei and Shinji, nodding. "He looks different and it's not just that usually when we fought he was glowing." There were hints of color here and there. "He doesn't look _this_ much more human than you do, Rei." Tabris looked at her apologetically, but Misato spread her hands. "You're talking to someone who was a media darling at an age when I had horrible acne. Believe me, I know about using makeup in order to not look terrible," as opposed to trying to be prettier than she really was, or for vanity. "But we go back a ways, don't we? It's these two you should think about. Shinji deserves the truth and Rei already thinks she's the ugly duckling without her brother being so much prettier than she is."

"I didn't want Shinji to react to me with fear." Or distaste.

"You're nervous, Kaworu," Shinji told him, blushing. "I've never seen you nervous before. I think that it doesn't suit you, but it does make you seem more human?" Even if he wasn't, at least he cared about what Shinji thought about him enough to worry. Enough to feel pain at the thought of rejection. Of being alone?

Or of losing Shinji?

Kaworu smiled back, so grateful for Shinji's smile and those words, and Shinji was somehow certain that if Kaworu could, he would be blushing. Were his cheeks slightly more blue-gray, flushed with blood that wasn't quite human? Even if studying their bodies had shown that humans and angels were genetically very close.

"I would like to play with you again, Shinji, before the end," the angel said. "I would like that very much."

"Yeah, about that," Misato interrupted. "The end, I mean."

"If you are talking about SEELE's treachery, that my union with Lilith would only resurrect Adam, I already know. The assassin was one of Gendo's followers, and he was killed before he even got out of the building. Fortunately, the guard only shot him in the chest." Leaving the brain intact when Kaworu, Tabris, was an angel.

Shinji felt a little sick, remembering what happened to Touji, but this was Kaworu.

"The assassin was told he should go to that guard for help escaping from Sanctuary to reach Gendo's stronghold. The guard thought our counterintelligence head thought that Kaji was too much of a risk, even after verifying that Kaji really had been our agent from the beginning." That he wasn't making it up, but really had been a spy even before he met Misato. "Our counterintelligence head wrote a letter of apology to me for targeting one of my own, and then killed himself a little more effectively. The timing of that didn't match up, and I realized I should go to the one who knows most about everything SEELE does."

"Lorenz? You're handing over Lorenz to us?" This wasn't worth Kaji's life, but even knowing that, Misato couldn't help but grin.

"His body," Tabris said, firmly but apologetically. "I can't give you his soul. His Holiness Keel was the true center of SEELE. He possessed knowledge of so many things no other single Lilim knew. At first, it was so that no other would bear the guilt of knowing what their actions would contribute to, what had to happen in the future. Then it was power," and when even kind Tabris admitted that? "He wished for instrumentality more than complementation. I needed to verify that if I merged with Lilith, the souls of the Lilim truly would cease to exist as themselves. Lorenz Keel's body is alive. His soul is no more. His knowledge is mine. I have already informed the full Council of this," including the representatives of the new members, not just the Committee. "For now, I will be taking Lorenz's place as leader of SEELE. They will not move on Tokyo-3 or the UN until a decision is reached or without my approval."

It was a shock to her to hear that Tabris actually had done what she'd feared he would do to her for years, because in the end she had come to believe that he didn't have it in him. But they were all growing up, weren't they? And that brought things called responsibilities with it.

Keel must have believed that Tabris wouldn't do it either. That he would get away with killing Kaji, because even though he and Gendo were the obvious suspects once the possibility of UN involvement was ruled out, he was more than wily enough to make sure it couldn't be traced back to him. What power on earth had the power to hold him accountable for anything, except for Tabris? The UN had tried and failed for years.

Had he finally experienced the same nightmare he'd inflicted on the world? What had he said, to drive Tabris to accept and take advantage of the dark side of his own power? Respect was the combination of fear and love, and Tabris had hated being feared. Not wanted to do anything to confirm the world's belief that he was a monster. Yet he'd given Kaji shelter, and maybe it was Tabris her husband had believed in, or wanted to, not SEELE? One among so many others that the angel was responsible for, who believed in him.

Keel would never have forgotten that the angel was an angel. But she could see him being foolish enough to fail to see that the angel was no longer a child trying to be loved. He was someone aware that he was loved, someone with people to protect. People Keel had used him to protect, groomed him to protect.

A man like that made few miscalculations, but she could see him failing to realize, up until the end, what it really meant that the angel _cared_.

"Because they need you to die to follow SEELE's complementation recipe," Misato told him, even if he really had absorbed Keel, who must have known. She didn't doubt that Tabris was willing to do it if he was willing to kill. She doubted he would accept the rest.

"I know that, now. I would not hesitate to die to end the pain of the Lilim, but first the ritual must be studied and confirmed to work as the traditions say it does." After Keel lied when he told the world that Tabris could grant them complementation and godhood? "Second, my death and Eva 01 are not the only keys to the ritual. As crafted, it cannot take place without the Third Child."

"Are you really okay with driving Shinji insane?" Ritsuko asked, folding her arms.

Shinji stared at her and Rei frowned deeply at the thought.

"I am certain that Shinji's heart would recover, but that isn't the only reason he is necessary. The Third Child is the only being capable of killing me," Tabris told her, smiling. "That is why our meeting was fated. I was born to meet him, and become willing to die by his hand."

"Wait, Kaworu…" No!

"So, neither the UN nor SEELE can afford for Shinji to die. Without him, you cannot stop me. Without him, there will be no paradise, no Promised Day." Kaworu smiled at him reassuringly. "I don't need the future to dream of happiness the way Lilim do, Shinji. I am happy with only this: that you have accepted me. That I take away enough of your painful loneliness that you would feel pain if you lost me. It brings me great joy."

Seeing him smile like that, all Shinji could think of was that if Kaworu glowed a bit, the way he did during official appearances and all the footage of him battling Misato, then Shinji really would have to believe that he was an angel. "You're too kind," Shinji said, and while that was a compliment it was also a bad thing, because, "Someone as good as you are should live." The world would be better off for it.

"Well, it is up to you," Kaworu told him. "My fate is in your hands, but you Lilim… You suffer so, Shinji. I get so many letters from those who have suffered greatly, who yearn for complementation." He looked up at Shinji's sister. "Do not say that life is pain, Misato. These people do not deserve to die. They do not deserve this pain any more than you did."

"We _will _have this conversation again later," again and again until he listened, "But I'm willing to trade music sessions with Shinji for make-up lessons for Rei."

Kaworu was surprised. "It isn't a hardship to spend time with my sister. I let her be taken into your care so that she would be safe. So she would have a home that would bring her happiness. If she wishes to walk among the Lilim and be treated as one of them, I will be happy to spend as much time as it takes to show her what I've learned."

"Sorry," Misato said. "I guess I'm just so used to having to stand up for Rei."

"Are you happy, sister?" Kaworu asked her now. "The two of us are the same, and we are not. Do you suffer as the Lilim do?" Since her soul was Lilith's instead of one born from Adam?

Rei did not respond immediately, and Ritsuko knew her well enough to see that she was trying to choose her words carefully, probably to avoid implying that Ritsuko and Misato weren't adequate. "I have a home, but I would like to make friends among my peers."

"Lilim your own age." Or at least the age she seemed: Rei was only half Shinji's age. Lilith was billions of years old. "I will do all I can to help you."

Kaworu did seem different, Shinji thought, and it wasn't just the coloring. "So this is how Tabris talks to people?" More benevolent than familiar?

It made his friend look happy, that Shinji noticed the difference. "I'm sorry, Shinji. I suppose I was falling back on formality because there was business to discuss." And he was a little nervous. "Can you stay long?" Kaworu asked hopefully.

Shinji looked at Misato. "I can, and Ritsuko can, but we can't have two out of three pilots out of Tokyo-3 for very long," she told Tabris. "Asuka's on call, but Rei has the night shift because she sleeps at the base anyway."

"I wish I could come with you," Kaworu said. Glancing at Shinji, he mentioned that, "I have a cello and a violin here, although they aren't yours, I know. I've already given the ambassador instructions," on the flight over, "so we could see how out of practice we are, or… What is Rei to you?"

It took Shinji a second to think of that, because now instead of looking like an abomination, Rei looked like Kaworu. "My niece?" Because Misato was his big sis, she and Ritsuko were Sisters and Ritsuko had adopted Rei.

Ritsuko put her hand on Rei's shoulder. She'd had an unrequited crush on Misato for quite awhile when she was a teenager, so she knew how that felt.

Kaworu looked relieved. "Do you want to come up to my rooms while I show her a few things until she has to go?"

"That sounds fine," Shinji said, not really registering that he'd be watching someone put makeup on someone else.

"Do you mind if I come too?" Ritsuko asked, because she wasn't letting her daughter out of her sight, not in SEELE territory, not around people with diplomatic immunity who might want Rei dead.

Kaworu shook his head. "No, I'm glad." That she wanted to protect Rei. "This way."

"That," Ritsuko said when Kaworu opened one of the double doors leading to the bathroom, "is a bathtub." She wanted a few hours alone with it, some bubble bath, the latest scientific journals and a few sponges.

"Wow, it's big enough to be a public bath, Kaworu," was Shinji's reaction, although the closest he'd ever come to those was the bath in NERV's pilot-only locker room.

"It has massage jets," Ritsuko said somewhat longingly. Too many hours, too much stress: she could _really _use a back massage.

Rei thought it was a pity it wasn't big enough to swim laps in, but didn't say anything. The others agreed it was strangely big instead of unfortunately small, and she didn't want to be the odd one out.

"It was put in for me." White marble and all – whoever designed these rooms had managed to pick colors that highlighted but flattered Tabris' alien complexion. "I like baths. They're very relaxing, aren't they?"

All of them nodded, Ritsuko the most firmly, as Tabris walked past the bathtub to the table with the three large mirrors to reflect the person who sat in the stool from different angles. "Sit here, Rei."

She looked at Ritsuko first, but did, watching Tabris in the mirrors as he came up behind her and began pulling out different drawers. "Nothing I use is water soluble, so if you want to wear it home I'll give you a bottle of solvent so you can take it off later." When it started to wear off. "Since you aren't in as much danger as I was when I was learning, I'll find you normal versions of the colors you like so it won't be as much trouble to fix mistakes."

"Thank you," she said, a little surprised by his assumption that of course he would give her what she needed, but then he did have the resources of a country, so she couldn't refuse because it was too much trouble.

It was a little strange to feel someone touch her, not Ritsuko's hugs or a medical examination but tilting her face one way or another, looking into her eyes, pulling her hair up to show her how it could look. It was an examination, but there was nothing clinical about it, no surprise or revulsion. Physicians knew the human body, and even the pediatrician Ritsuko found who _liked _Rei couldn't help how all the wrongnesses about Rei's body jumped out at her, worried her because she was trained to notice such deviations from the norm and figure out what sickness caused them, how much danger her patient was in if those signs were there. She didn't see _Rei _as an enemy, but the signs she was an angel still alarmed her. Kaworu, though, wasn't surprised by how she looked at all, and even seemed to approve of some things he noticed, from the way he hummed. Like he didn't think there was anything wrong with her, like he knew that she could be pretty.

Her… brother. They were the same kind of being, weren't they? So the proof she was alien that bothered humans would only prove that she was like him, instead of bothering him the way it did Shinji?

Kaworu rested his hands on his shoulders after he put a few different colors of various things out on the table and began to explain how it worked. She already knew what all of them were called and what they were supposed to be used for, but she hadn't really understood about undertones, how colors appeared different depending on the lighting and what she was wearing, all these complicated things. "It sounds like chemistry." All the reactions.

"That's part of it, yes," Kaworu told her. "And color addition, color subtraction, color theory… It's an art just as much as music is. Lilim have schools that teach this." Noticing that she was a little overwhelmed, after reassuring her that he didn't expect her to find it simple by assuring her that everyone required training he asked her, "Do you want me to choose the foundation and basics for you this time, and I'll explain a little more while I put them on?"

She nodded, relieved but making notes of what to study. Science, science she could do, and she'd already learned a bit about light and pigments, even all of the fashion things about winters had gone over her head.

Her brother's hands were gentle and his red eyes were kind, not cold as so many described hers. When he wasn't explaining things patiently he hummed.

This wasn't quite what she had hoped for from Shinji, but she still liked this, she decided. Rei hadn't known it would be possible to put her hair up until it was as long as Ritsuko's. Kaworu wasn't going further down with the different powders and solutions than the middle of her neck, so it bothered her a little to see the division between the face that was beginning to look healthy and human and the pallid, alien skin beneath it. Was this what it was like for humans to see her standing next to another human, the contrast making her nature painfully obvious?

At least his grey hair was humanly possible, even if not at his age, unlike her pale blue, she thought, and tried not to feel jealous. He was friends again with Shinji now too, and although she was relieved that Shinji didn't hate all abominations now, had accepted him back since it meant there was hope for her, she wished Shinji had met her first as a fellow Lilim instead of a creepy little girl who didn't know to blink.

"You feel like Grandmother," she told him.

"Grandmother?"

"My Eva. Grandma Naoko. Misato brought me in with her my first time, to introduce me. She was Ritsuko's mother." Naoko walked her through fighting and other things in the Eva, was protective of Rei and said that as her grandmother it was her job to spoil her, although she had to ask Ritsuko to do the actual buying of things.

"Ah." How nice, to have a grandmother. His smile made her feel lucky, just a bit. "Hmm. Maybe I've gone about this wrong."

"What do you mean?"

"You don't need to disguise yourself: the Lilim know how you look, that you fight for them. Instead of making you look like a Lilim, I should have thought of how to make you beautiful." He crouched down to look over her shoulder at the mirror, eyes level with hers, and she noticed that his were closer to a true red than the color of LCL. "I wish my hair was your color. Such a pretty pale blue: it would be a shame to dye it. That was what made me realize that I shouldn't." One arm wrapped around her from behind, to hug her. "Blue lace agate… I'm sorry for wasting your time like this: let me wash this off and I'll do what I can, properly this time, before you have to go."


	12. Here With Me

"So you… Ate Keel?" Shinji asked when they arrived back in Tabris' chambers after seeing Rei and Ritsuko out.

"I broke into his soul and absorbed his knowledge." Tabris looked just a little worried again. "Does that bother you?" he asked as he opened another door to reveal a music room.

"It probably would if he hadn't ordered the deaths of billions of people and had Kaji killed." Under those circumstances, Shinji wondered if he was even a little grateful or at least thought it was a good thing as he sat down by a music stand and a cello case. "It won't change you or anything, will it?" That, that worried him. He didn't want to lose Kaworu again.

Kaworu smiled, glad that he could reassure him. "I know more than I did before, and now I will need to begin to govern instead of being a defender and a symbol, but my soul is my own." Actually, that was the problem. "I am disappointed that I cannot give my people complementation. The peace, understanding and eternal life without pain they have yearned for."

"You really think Third Impact could be a good thing?" Shinji asked him, looking doubtful. He knew there were people who honestly believed that despite the devastation of Second Impact, but Kaworu really believed that? Not Tabris, but Kaworu?

Kaworu looked at him, confused. "You don't?"

"Well, no," Shinji said, confused himself now by why Kaworu would ask that. He had agreed to be an Eva pilot even knowing he would eventually be expected to fight Tabris and then SEELE. Fight and kill humans. "Why would I agree to fight people if I didn't think it was that important."

"And you know the truth of instrumentality and complementation," Kaworu was sure of it. Fuyutsuki wouldn't deceive the boy. "I know you hate Gendo and Yui, but you also know that what we," what SEELE, "seek isn't lonely godhood, but happiness without pain for all Lilim?"

"Yes, I know you have good intentions, at least some of you. I've heard about Misato's fights and all the politics since I was a little kid." He'd grown up with this stuff. "I mean, I know that_ you_ have good intentions, Kaworu," of course he would, "but I always figured that anyone who really thought about it… You can't just do that to people. No one has the right to make that decision for everyone without asking them, and since a lot of people would say no?"

"And I… everyone I've met who rejected it absolutely was full of hatred. Hated me as well, and refused to listen. Just assumed that I was evil because of what I was, and complementation had to be evil because Keel caused so much pain to the Lilim, and wasn't willing to hear or think otherwise. But you aren't like that." Shinji had forgiven him, was even willing to play with him again knowing what he was, and Shinji could see the gratitude in those slightly downcast red eyes, how touched Kaworu was. "For someone who understands it and doesn't have personal reasons like Misato's hatred, or Fuyutsuki's grief over what Yui became, to reject it… I won't insult you by saying that you can't possibly understand it properly, but… Lilim life is pain. I know that you've suffered pain and rejection because of who you were born to." Just like Kaworu, Tabris had because he was born of Adam, made by SEELE. "How can you choose pain and loneliness over perfect togetherness, death over eternal happiness? It just doesn't seem like a rational choice." But Kaworu was willing to listen to Shinji's reasons, willing to believe he had good reasons, because it was Shinji.

"Really? No one at SEELE has doubts at all?"

"Well, I've spoken to new converts, and yes, but what they doubted, _why_ they doubted before they saw the truth…" Kaworu corrected himself. "Before they decided that complementation would be a blessing, their fear and hatred was because of Second Impact. It is," he admitted, bowing his head, "hard to believe that a good thing could be the goal of something that ended the lives of so many Lilim. That happiness could be born of so much pain, but isn't Lilim existence also full of pain and death? Billions died in Second Impact, yes, but every minute of every day Lilim are dying, billions doomed to die after such short, painful lives unless instrumentality is attained and Lilim become immortal the way I am. Shinji… You can't truly want to die, can you?" Now he looked so worried that Shinji had to take his hands, hurry to reassure him.

"Of course I don't, Kaworu. I have my family, and…" And now he had Kaworu again.

"I, I hope you can accept complementation someday, Shinji. That whatever reason you have to reject it is resolved. I don't want you to die," his friend said. "Knowing that you were going out there, fighting the other angels when you weren't at your best, and because of me? If you had died, I could never have forgiven myself."

"I won't die, Kaworu," Shinji promised because he had to. He couldn't make his friend worry like this.

"Even if you survive the angels, all Lilim die eventually." And Tabris wouldn't. He would lose Shinji, and have to go on for the sake of the people he had taken responsibility for. Their lives, now, instead of just serving as a symbol of the future, being their key to complementation. "I have been looking forward to it, Shinji," Kaworu said softly, and now Shinji was certain that he would be blushing if he could. "To having no more lies, deceptions or misunderstandings between us. Finding out that I and everyone else had been lied to, that I couldn't grant everyone's wishes…" It had broken Kaworu's heart that he couldn't bring about complementation, and Shinji understood that Kaworu needed to play, to retreat into music just as badly as he did, needed Shinji's company just as much as Shinji missed Kaworu.

"But it's not everyone's wish," Shinji reminded him. "A lot of people will be relieved that you're not going to attack us and trigger instrumentality. Maybe, now that you're not going to force everyone into… _that_," the thought of becoming even partially one with _his parents_, not to mention with all the people who hated him because of his parents? Feeling their hatred as if it was his? "They'll believe that you aren't evil?" And Keel's tame angel killing him, getting the vengeance for Second Impact so many wanted would help. Eating his soul sounded like a nicely gory and unpleasant fate, too. Wait, "Does that mean _Keel _really believed that? Thought it was good enough to be worth everything he did?" Kaworu hadn't found out that too was a lie when he ate him?

Kaworu look upwards a little, thinking back. "They could, they _should _have evacuated, and at least tried to launch Adam into orbit before beginning… what they did to weaken him, but if they warned anyone the world would have asked how they knew. No matter what, the amount of energy released would have been devastating, and the grieving would have blamed them for the deaths that weren't prevented even though what they did to my father was necessary to save the Lilim." Tabris closed his eyes, taking out a different violin than the one he'd used for years, practicing with Shinji. "No matter what, there would have been some deaths. Adam's power… even a controlled detonation altered the axial tilt of this entire planet." That much power: even trying to contain it, restrict it, deny it dominion over their world was sheerest hubris for beings limited as Lilim were. That they'd managed it even with Adam already asleep, even doing it by triggering the creation of another entity whose birth would first exhaust Adam and then would deflect some of the blast of Adam's power by instinctively shielding itself, was as inconceivable a thing as the cost.

"I'm sure they still have your things," Shinji was quick to tell them. "I'll ask Hyuga for your violin back."

That smile was all the thanks Shinji needed, but Kaworu still said, "Thank you," grateful for Shinji going to the trouble even though normally Kaworu was the one who troubled himself to help Shinji do things. "Keel wanted to keep his power and his reputation instead of being branded a murderer for what he did to save the Lilim. So, he didn't try to save this planet or those billions of people. He cared more about how he was perceived than how he truly was, in the end. I still do pity him," Kaworu said, pulling on his gloves before checking the strings. "The Lilim would have discovered his negligence, his cruelty when Keel achieved his goal, and complementation would have made him feel all their hatred as self-hatred. The heaven his actions granted the Lilim would become the hell he knew he deserved.

"He thought he was damned, and because of that he did not try to redeem himself, nor do less evil. In fact, he took pride in that as well. Third Impact will hopefully be a blessing: eternal life and freedom from pain for all Lilim. However, it is also a necessary thing. Lilith has no more souls to be born as new Lilim. No more hope for the future, and the future is something you Lilim need. The Dead Sea is spreading: every year more biomass is washed into it, every year it soaks further and further inland. Everyone knows that your kind cannot last much longer unless something is done." Even if they didn't know all of it. "The Lilim… If only one kind can exist on this planet, then your race is the one that should endure, Shinji. There are far more of you than there are of me, and you Lilim need the future." Even though they were red, Kaworu's eyes were sincere as he finished adjusting his stings.

Yes: this was how his people saw Tabris. _Their _angel, Shinji thought as he listened to this cello one more time to make sure it was in tune. An angel that actually cared about people, really cared and wanted to help, but even after eating Keel, Kaworu was still too nice. Too idealistic.

Asuka didn't really need a Kaji. But Kaworu, Kaworu was going to need someone to watch his back, Shinji realized. Someone to see the things Kaworu was too nice to see, since Shinji didn't want Kaworu to change too much more. He wanted his friend back, and if Kaworu became someone else, someone as bitter and suspicious as Shinji?

"Mind if we play that song first?" Kaworu asked, remembering all the times he'd asked that, how many times Shinji had said yes just because Kaworu liked it.

"Of course I don't mind, Kaworu," was Shinji's answer, even though it was jarring to see a grey head instead of a black one looking down at his violin as he began to play, humming as Shinji joined in.

A face with pale skin that could never tan tipped back with black/red eyes closed, focused entirely on the violin in his arms and the song in his throat. He didn't look quite the same, the violin didn't have exactly the same sound, but his voice, the way he sang, the way he played, the way he moved: they were all Kaworu. Shinji couldn't doubt anymore that this really was his friend. Still his Kaworu. So no wonder people listened to Tabris, really. No wonder they thought they could count on him to help them. Just like Kaworu.

It was, it really was a joy to play again. To focus on the music, no need for words except to suggest what they should play next. In his music room Shinji was the one who dug through the sheet music, but Kaworu knew where everything was here, so it was Kaworu who placed it on his stand, found the right pages for him, like he'd done at the Maestro's until Shinji learned how the library was organized and how to put things back exactly where they belonged so they didn't get lost. Shinji didn't wonder at the fact that there were copies of every song he wanted to play, because Kaworu knew him like that, was considerate like that, could be counted on for things like that.

Though when Shinji actually _looked _at him, met those eyes, it still kept startling him. That something so familiar was now different. He kept expecting to see black hair instead of gray strands that were almost translucent. Dark eyes instead of red ones, even though they had the same warmth. Shinji thought he owed it to his friend to get used to the real Kaworu, but he worked to bury himself deeper and deeper in the music until he forgot that Kaworu was an abomination just like how he forgot the abominations he had to fight, the Eva abomination he had to fight them with. Buried all the insanity under note after note of harmony.

Until his cell phone rang. Shinji had to juggle his bow for a second to get it out of his pocket, trying to answer it quickly because he'd picked an annoying ring to make sure it got his attention. "Hey, Dad."

"Shinji, where are you?"

…Oh crap. "Didn't Misato tell you?"

"I'm about to call her next. The Fifteenth Angel's been detected. It's remaining in high orbit for now, but… You're at _the embassy?_" There was no need to ask which one Professor Fuyutsuki meant.

"Yeah, um, a lot's happened…" Shinji didn't want to tell Dad that Kaji was dead, even though his immediate gut reaction would be good or finally. Kaji doing that to Misato reminded him of Shinji's parents, and that was why he'd issued a shoot on sight order if Kaji was found in Tokyo-3's area. That still left Shinji scrambling for something that would derail Professor Fuyutsuki's parental worry and professional paranoia before black ops came busting in here to rescue him, embassy or no embassy. "Lorenz Keel is dead?"

There, that did it. The Chairman's death had the potential to alter the post-impact geopolitical landscape so much it might even upset the board.

"…I'm still not going to forgive him for breaking Misato's heart like that," Dad managed to say after awhile, although it was clear that Kaji would have been able to make him break that resolution. Keel's head on a platter was a very good excuse for just about anything.

"Kaji's… He didn't do it. You should ask Misato, this is something she should tell you, but…she's going to need you, Dad. She's been talking with the ambassador…" Shinji glanced at his phone. "All night?!" That was when he realized how long he'd been playing, how tired he was, and how unhappy hands that hadn't picked up a bow in months were with him. He flexed the hand that wasn't holding the cell phone and saw Kaworu move out of the corner of his eye to get something for that. "We came in an official car: do you want it to stay here for Misato? I could ask Kaworu to get me a cab."

"A cab? With people trying to get out of Tokyo-3 while the abomination's still in orbit?" Shinji should know he was going to need some kind of official car. "Someone call our liaison office in Tokyo-2, have them send a car to the embassy," Fuyutsuki said, face turned away from the phone, then sighed. "I'm certain Misato _has _a good explanation for this…" Keel's head on a platter certainly sounded like one, even though taking Shinji over there was so absolutely insane. "But Kaworu?" Shinji was calling him Kaworu? "Son…" Shinji was setting himself up for heartbreak again. Fuyutsuki knew Shinji knew he was going to have to fight Tabris, so why was he doing this to himself?

"This is really big, Dad," Shinji said, trying to sound earnest instead of sheepish, because while what Misato was doing was important, Shinji had just spent eight hours he was supposed to spend sleeping playing the cello with an abomination the night before another abomination showed up. "Call Misato. I'll see you soon, ok?"

"I'm told we'll have a car there in eight minutes. Be in the lobby, or outside." Where the eyes in the sky could make sure he was reasonably intact.

"Yes, Dad."

"Love you, son."

"Love you too."

"You're still restricted to the citadel until further notice," Fuyutsuki said, and hung up.

Shinji put his cell back in his pocket and took the tube Kaworu handed him.

"They didn't have Tiger Balm in the infirmary here and it doesn't sound like you'll be staying long enough for someone to run to the store," he apologized.

"This'll do," Shinji said, sticking it in a pocket. It wasn't like he'd have much else to do in the car but work the stiffness out of his hands, unless Hyuga or someone called him to debrief him. Shinji doubted it. Well, maybe Ritsuko, but Third Child or not, Shinji was a teenager. This was a big shake-up, and all the analysts were going to want to look at Kaji's information and whatever Tabris had already authorized the embassy staff to share. "You know I just use Tiger Balm because of the name."

Kaworu laughed: yes, he knew. "I wish this had better timing. Sorry for keeping you up all night."

"I'll be fine," Shinji assured him, even though realistically the abominations were getting tougher and smarter and that wasn't a promise he should make. He just didn't want Kaworu to worry.

Kaworu knew that no, this was not going to be easy, but he didn't argue with Shinji because pointing out how much danger Shinji was in wasn't going to make either of them feel better.

Although Shinji was cautious when it came to letting other people near him, he was actually a lot more used to being touched than most of the people in Tokyo-3, since despite the massive immigration Japan was still a reserved culture that didn't go for public displays of affection. However, Kaji had no sense of personal space, Dad had always made an effort to make sure Shinji knew that he was loved and wanted even though the old professor wasn't his real father (thank goodness) & Misato had spent years tied up without human contact and treated her new, traumatized baby brother as a living plushie, demanding that he come sleep in her bed when he was afraid of nightmares. Or when she was having one of those nights.

Shinji had a lot of nightmares after what his mother did, after all the looks people gave him because his parents were evil.

So Shinji's reaction to someone embracing him wasn't shock that someone would do something like that. It was usually, "Dad, I'm fourteen now, remember?" or, "Misato, stop making my classmates mad at me," because he had a sexy heroine hugging him to her chest and they didn't.

When he found Kaworu's arms around him he returned the hug, of course, wrapping his arms around his silent friend. Kaworu hugging him was new, even though it didn't feel that way. Kaworu was part of the music room, part of home. Misato had brought four people and a penguin home with her and kept them because she didn't like to be alone, so Shinji could have this one. It was only fair, right? "I'll see you soon, okay?"

"I'm going to be a lot busier than I was before, but I will make time for you, Shinji," Kaworu promised, pulling back enough now to smile at him but not letting go until he admitted that, "I should walk you down to the lobby now: the professor's going to be angry enough as it is."

Shinji remembered the other time Fuyutsuki had gotten mad at Kaworu. Actually, both of them: there'd been an afterparty after a gig once and, well, stuff happened.

Neither of them wanted to let go, and Shinji didn't realize they were holding hands until they were in the lobby and Tabris couldn't follow him any further. The presence of the abomination on UN soil wasn't _quite _an act of war, but the UN kept trying to make it one when they renegotiated the limited engagement guidelines with SEELE. It wasn't really a treaty since they were technically still at war, more rules of engagement and limits on repriasals. For one thing, followers of SEELE on UN soil were not treated as civilians, but as enemies of mankind who were not wearing uniforms, which made them spies. It would be nice if they could just be kicked out of whatever country they were in, but the UN didn't have the power to enforce that, not reliably. Not dealing with lynch mobs.

Second Impact killed billions. Tabris _was _a weapon of mass destruction, even if he could control that power enough to not hurt Misato. Shinji bet that Japan and the UN had thrown seventeen kinds of fits to find out that he'd been coming here for _years_ incognito, but the trouble was that there was only so much they could do about it, and they already were furious with SEELE to begin with, so it probably hadn't made much difference except to the number of witch hunts, if the information leaked.

Even though he wanted to ask Kaworu to come with him, he knew he couldn't. Not when he was the son of the Ikaris, not when Kaworu was Tabris.

Shinji ended up standing in the doorway, no longer holding hands but not letting the door close, leaning against it so at least there wasn't anything dividing them, until the car got there. "Bye," he said, reaching to adjust his music player. It startled him when he didn't have it, since he was so used to turning music on when Kaworu left and he stopped making music.

"Bye," Kaworu said, as though it was just bye for now, as though there wasn't anything stopping him from meeting Shinji tomorrow in the music room. No war, no abominations, no difference between them.

To maintain that feeling of normalcy, Shinji nodded, let the door close and focused on casually walking over and getting in the car after the Intelligence Division man opened the door for him.


	13. Stupider Than Water

The engine started up and he found himself sandwiched between the two of them, with nothing to do but think. There was so much that he didn't know how long it took him to shake himself awake – he didn't think he'd fallen asleep, but he hadn't done much thinking, more feeling – and dig into the pocket by his seatbelt for the muscle and joint cream.

After he'd done a few fingers, he finally noticed that there was something a little odd. They should at least be asking him some questions: he'd met with _Tabris_, for goodness' sake. Shinji didn't know all the Intelligence Division members, especially those at the other offices like Tokyo-2, but he would have assumed that they'd send a familiar face. Someone who knew Shinji well enough to know if Shinji was acting strangely, someone Kaji's student would recognize as a friendly and be more willing to share information.

That was when Shinji realized that oh crap, he was in even more trouble than he'd thought. They weren't going to arrest him and drag him off somewhere with an abomination up there on the horizon, but assigning him escorts, guards rather, who weren't associated with Shinji, and probably not compromised by Kaji? His dad would do that so there would be trustworthy witnesses to cover Shinji's ass, that was the only reason Rei was allowed around people who weren't friendly to her in the beginning, but he'd only think to order that when there was an angel to deal with if he'd already gotten angry calls and Shinji was going to be hauled in front of a subcommittee at the least as soon as the angel was dead.

His foggy mind had just decided that oh well, there wasn't anything he could do about it until after the battle when they went under an overpass and the two men suddenly hit his seat buckles and threw him out of the car.

Lying on the grass, blinking up at the concrete, Shinji groaned. He'd gone five years without any kidnappings, and now it happened again right when the world, his dad, Rei and Asuka, everyone actually needed him. He really needed to apologize to Kaji: what was all that training for, anyway?

"Restrain him," an unfamiliar voice ordered.

Yup, definitely a kidnapping, Shinji thought as his hands were restrained behind his back by plastic ties, while one of them patted him down and took his ID, cell phone, wallet and hand cream, just in case it was explosive. They knew what they were doing, too. Had to if they had men in the Intelligence Division: they wouldn't have been allowed onto embassy grounds without ID, not unless SEELE was compromised enough for someone to take a risk like that when Tabris was in residence and Shinji was his friend.

He was hauled to his knees in front of a man with dark glasses and a goatee.

Shinji stared, because could this guy look anything more like a cliché villain? He looked like something out of the comic books based on Misato's adventures. "You're not actually with SEELE, are you?" Because a SEELE agent wouldn't have made it to Tokyo-3 if they were stupid enough to look so much like the evil and crazy servants of darkness and chaos dressed in suits and hiding their evil natures incredibly badly. So this guy had to want people to think that Shinji was kidnapped by SEELE, right?

His money was on one of the UN factions that suspected that Tokyo-3 was entirely compromised by SEELE or had been made into slaves by the eldritch abominations under their feet and in their Eva cages. Conspiracy theorists liked to look mysterious, except for the kind with tinfoil hats. Alternatively, they were one of the terrorist groups that kept trying to escalate the war with SEELE, the kind that organized witch hunts for suspected SEELE sympathizers (that sent a lot of innocent people running across the border) or tried to make it look as though SEELE had done something that would make the UN finally start throwing N2 missiles at them, as though most of Earth's surface wasn't _already _contaminated and unliveable because of LCL.

No was going to use nukes, not even ones that were practically all hydrogen fusion on SEELE not just because of Tabris but because they held _fertile land_, the middle of the Eurasian continent. The area projected to be the last part of Earth to be rendered barren by the LCL slowly making its way inward from the coasts into the water table. Nuking _that _would convince even more people that humanity was absolutely screwed without instrumentality. SEELE knew it (which was why they held it even though they weren't thinking about the long term) the UN knew it, everyone with a brain knew it.

SEELE and the UN weren't at peace: the last two years had just been a case of, "War temporarily called on account of Armageddon." If one of the elder abominations reached the progenitors, they were all screwed.

"Hmm," was all the man said, and Shinji thought his eyes narrowed behind those glasses. "So you know that much."

Shinji realized he'd lost his chance to appear weak, helpless, clueless and panicked, which was obviously the best thing to do. Other than exploding into action the instant it became apparent what was going on, since the only maneuver more devastating than an ambush was an ambushed ambush, but unfortunately Shinji had wasted those precious seconds groaning and trying to get his brain to start functioning well enough to remember stuff like that.

Apparently Shinji leaving school had put his social phobia/fear of people all over the news, causing more questioning of his competence as a pilot and agreement among media types that yeah, they were basically screwed. It was hard to tell who was collaborating with SEELE and who was just working from the knowledge that alarmist news sold, so NERV just treated all reporters as enemy agents they weren't allowed to shoot (yet). It avoided a lot of hassle. Shinji's isolation meant very few people knew anything about what he was really like, and none of them were inclined to gossip. Unless someone had managed to give Tabris a listening ear and get him to reminisce about Shinji, no one should have any real information on him. Yes, he'd hung with Kaji a lot, but as a SEELE agent Kaji should have been out to sabotage him, or make sure he could beat angels but couldn't do anything about other threats. Oh, people knew Shinji the cellist was that Shinji, but being devoted to classical music wasn't generally an indicator that people knew how to fight. He'd probably be more threatening if he was into Heavy Metal or something.

Problem was that he couldn't stand that genre because he needed his hearing, thanks, and people screaming words he couldn't make out over all the loud noises reminded him of both after his mother got absorbed and all those crazy assassins running at him with guns when he was a kid.

He didn't want to give this guy anything else to go on, so he just looked up at him, not blankly, but with more of a 'seriously?' expression. An elder abomination attack was not the time for this, he thought everyone agreed they were a problem.

The man just looked down at him, expression giving nothing away but that he was thoughtful and Shinji was forty or so years too early to play mind games with him, or so he thought.

Shinji decided to crack and say something before the look actually did get to him and make him crack. "So, are you going to tell me what this is all about, or do we wait for NERV to find out that I'm not actually in that car?" At which point the Magi would start going over its route.

The pilot suddenly knew that he had said something that branded him in all their eyes as very, very stupid. On the one hand, that was great, because he needed to be underestimated. On the other, if he was saying stupid things without actually meaning to, that didn't bode well for his odds of getting out of this intact enough to pilot.

"Do you know who I am?" the man asked, and maybe there was a hint there that he was disturbed, that this really wasn't what he had expected. Would his ego be an exploitable flaw?

"Unless you're a Baron von Dercruix cosplayer," Shinji said, naming one of the SEELE-based villains a Misato-based heroine battled in one of the anime Suzuhara raved about, "I honestly have no idea."

One of the generic minions barely suppressed a laugh.

"I'm not going to say it," their leader told them, turning away. "Bring him."

"Is someone going to let me in on the joke?" Shinji asked, but a glare from their leader made the minions shut their traps. "Don't tell me he_ is_ cosplaying." There was being kidnapped by crazies and there was being kidnapped by crazies. There were the dangerous fanatics that made even Kaji stop playing around and then there were the raving loonies. If he'd gotten kidnapped by the latter bunch when there was an angel up there, Asuka was going to kill him, Shinji thought as he was trussed up with more ties and put into the trunk of a car that looked way too small to… Oh Lilith, they were going to all squeeze in there. There technically were enough seats for the five of them, but they were big men. "I've been kidnapped by _cosplayers_ in a _clown car_?" Shinji couldn't help whining because it was just that awful.

Somehow, someway, this was all Kaji's fault. Surprise party gone horribly evil? "But it's not anywhere _near _my birthday," Shinji objected on general principles.

* * *

"General!" Everyone snapped to attention as Misato walked in.

"Did I miss anything?" The geofront's thick-walled warren was wonderful for defense, terrible for cell phone signals.

"No," Fuyutsuki told her from the Commander's chair above, even though right now having a bird's eye view of the area was no use. "The abomination is still hovering up there. She knows she can take her time: she won't rush in so foolishly again twice."

"Asuka, Rei?"

Asuka yawned, both because she was bored and because she'd been on-shift for hours.

"I detect no mental contamination, General Misato."

Asuka leaned forward in her seat, looking up at her own magnified view of the flying abomination. "She won't try that twice, not after Mom kicked her ass."

The abominations knew that the three front-line Evas possessed souls, but it appeared that this one had failed to take that into account. When it broke into Asuka's mind, it neglected to note that Kyoko was also connected to her daughter. For the angel to read Asuka's mind and send disturbing images, the data connection had to be two-way. Ritsuko was still analyzing the exact process, but Kyoko had somehow managed to hijack the signal to do something that had appeared, inside Asuka's mind, as stomping a certain doll flat and proceeding to gore the stuffing out of it with her high heels. The abomination cut the link in time, but now they were playing the waiting game.

"Where's Shinji?" Misato asked.

"He was escorted to one of the debriefing rooms: I told them to get him into his plugsuit in case we need to deploy him," Fuyutsuki told her. "But I'd rather not send him out, especially not without a plan."

"Let's get him into his Eva."

"Do you have a plan?"

"It might be out of range for AT field projection attached to conventional weapons, but we do have one weapon that can cut through an AT field on its own," Misato pointed out. "Or we have one of the two."

"You want to use the lance and risk unleashing Lilith?" Just because she was their progenitor didn't mean she wasn't an abomination, and Adam caused Second Impact.

"Hell no. This one attacked Asuka as soon as she showed herself. I'm wondering if that wasn't impatience or overconfidence as waiting for the moment we gave it an opening." When Asuka was out from under layers of metal and rock that could have distorted the signal. "If we force it to make the next move… It depends on what that next move is." But it might be something that would leave the angel vulnerable. "They know the lances exist, and they're abomination technology. I don't want to count on it, but it might be good to have it in reserve. Provided we can recover it." A lance had restrained Adam: they needed to save theirs for Tabris. If they could. If they all died now, it wouldn't matter.

"General, Shinji isn't in the briefing room!" one of the staff seated by Melchior reported.

"Ritsuko!"

"On it." There, the two guards had tossed in the plug suit and spoken through the door. She kept rewinding to when they'd arrived, and, "Shinji was never in that room: those guards had his ID card."

"K-" Not Kaji. "Hyuga!"

"Understood. Attention, all security and intelligence personnel. Pilot Shinji Fuyutsuki is missing, hostile action certain. Eva cage security, capture Agents Wakamoto and Heidigger: we're tracking their locations now. I also want their vehicle and homes searched and guarded." Yes, even when an Eva battle could take place out there at any minute and the apartment buildings were currently dangling in midair underground. At least one of them lived in Tokyo-2.

"Are we certain he left the embassy?" the professor asked, looking worried.

"As we can be," Ritsuko told him. "I watched the pickup myself: unless Tabris tampered with my eyes, he got in that car but didn't get out at NERV. The magi are still analyzing the probability."

"Well, why not," Misato said thoughtfully. "Ritsuko, get Tabris' attention." Of course he would be keeping an eye on the fight, even if they were as close to certain as they could realistically be that he couldn't watch NERV's inner sanctum.

"Are you certain?"

"Think of it as a test, Dad," she told him. "They made some fairly hefty promises." Tabris and the ambassador in Tabris' name and on his authority. "Let's see what happens."

"We've detected another AT field! Tabris confirmed! It's heading towards the abomination!"

There were sounds of surprise and alarm from some of the lowest-level staff. If they merged, it would set off Third Impact. Still, Tabris could have merged with any of the others if it wanted to overwrite humanity, right? It wasn't that likely that they were all about to be obliterated, but it was hard not to worry about the potential end of the world.

The projection in front of them tracked Tabris moving up, a little past the other abomination, and then summoned what SEELE called the light of the soul, forming not a shield that sapped kinetic or other energy but a wall of pure force, the directed impulse's effect on the other abomination's velocity acting as though he'd spiked it towards the ground.

"Well, it looks like range won't be a problem soon: Rei!"

"Understood. Acquiring target." They all watched the triangles in Rei's targeting system circle and finally lock on.

"Thirteen down," Misato's voice rang out over the cheers, leaving off the, 'two to go,' part. Did they have two left or one left? "Good job, Rei."

"Thank you, General. Should we return to base or remain on standby to assist Pilot Shinji?"

"I thought you meant for him to help you find Shinji," her dad reminded Misato.

"Yes, and now we can focus on finding him." Misato slammed her hands down on the rim of the operations-level platform. "I want all available personnel out there right now! Do not raise the buildings: if he's in there, that will make it hard for them to escape with him!" Even though she doubted it, so, "Prioritize inside the base and above-ground searches!" Turning back to Dad, she said, "The bad news is, this means he doesn't have any brilliant ideas for finding Shinji without doing things the UN can't allow or forgive, and he's counting on the three of u-on me and Ritsuko to think of something."

* * *

_In the fight in episode 24 & the clip of Tabris and Unit 04 vs. Ramiel (you can find it on youtube), Tabris doesn't fight personally but uses his shield once and has the Eva do the work. Since he didn't want to risk being near the other abomination for too long, I figured that just providing an assist would be the best idea in this situation. Not to mention that using lasers or explosions over other people's airspace… _

_Since Shinji has such a strong resemblance to Rei and hence Yui (practically identical face shape to hint at relationship between him and Rei), it's reasonable for him not to resemble Gendo much and hence not recognize Gendo's face from looking in a mirror. Yes, Gendo is quite infamous, but Shinji tries to _avoid _reminders of his parents, since he doesn't want them to define him. Trying to win Gendo's love hurts canon!Shinji: to not even recognize him, let alone recognize him as (worthy to be) his father, is a little meta revenge for this._

_I wanted to have a, "Shinji, he is your father/Search your feelings, you know it not to be true," (Since Fuyutsuki is the father that raised him) scene, but it ended up not working out that way._


	14. Best Served Cold

When Eva 00 was back in the hanger and Rei had climbed out of her grandmother, she went through one of the doors and came back with a rolled-up cable hanging over her shoulder, one end trailing along behind her as she climbed back up Naoko and plugged the other end into the entry plug before climbing back down.

Pausing at the doors, she peered at the shadowed glass before smiling and going in.

After a quick shower, she looked in the mirror before getting dressed and hurrying to the lab.

"You seem happy, Rei."

"It hasn't all washed off." She was still pretty!

"Must not be carbon-based, then. He remembered that you're a pilot." So it would help if what he gave her could handle LCL.

Rei _smiled_, and Ritsuko pondered whether or not to tell her daughter that she was pretty sure the real reason Rei seemed so much more beautiful, so much more alive, was that she was smiling. Was that she believed that she was pretty, that she could be beautiful.

Of course, Rei was used to her mother telling her that she definitely wasn't ugly, people just needed to get used to her, that it wasn't Rei's fault they were scared, so she would probably ignore Ritsuko's opinion. Or worse, it could backfire, make Rei think that the makeup wasn't making any difference and there wasn't anything anyone could do to make Rei pretty, to make Shinji smile at her like Kaworu, to make Kensuke pay attention to her other than as a source of technical information.

No, Ritsuko thought, better to let Rei get used to being pretty. She definitely had a good figure, so if people could read her, if she smiled and the edge of _threat _was taken off, she'd be exotically gorgeous. Once people got used to thinking of Rei that way, once Rei got used to thinking of herself that way, then maybe she could believe Ritsuko when she said that Rei was beautiful just the way she was.

She was glad that had occurred to Tabris, that he'd decided to make her beautiful instead of assuming that the only for her to be pretty was to be normal. Well, in SEELE territory, they would think that their angel was beautiful, wouldn't they? And if he was terrifying on some level, then weren't angels in the Bible supposed to be? They called it the fear of god for a reason, too. Like a thunderstorm could be beautiful, even though it wasn't human and the power there could kill.

It was Tabris that made Ritsuko think of stormclouds, though. Rei was light and water, blue waves washing over white sand when Ritsuko herself was a child. When she and Misato taught Rei how to swim, she'd told her to dive under with her and turn over, look up at the blue sky and high white clouds through the ripples on the surface of the pool.

"Have you found any clues yet?" Rei asked hopefully.

"That's the trouble in dealing with professionals. Tunnels, bridges… They brought two other government cars with them and we can't see the license plates from up above. It's a shell game. At this point, we're fairly sure that the agent who talked to the gate guard at the embassy wasn't one of the ones that arrived here. Well, hooking your grandmother up to the Magi will let her help us find him, don't worry Rei." She patted her daughter on the shoulder.

"I know that the most important thing is to find Shinji soon, but I wish I could be out there with Asuka." Grandmother needed to be here, though, and if someone was kidnapping pilots and Misato thought Gendo was on his way here, if he wasn't here already, then Rei wasn't going outside the citadel without her grandmother's AT field and giant robot fists to protect her.

An alarm went off: not the angel alarm but one Ritsuko never heard before. It took the way the walls were shaking to tell her what was happening. "Damn it, Yui, why now… Rei!"

"Understood." Naoko and Kyoko could restrain the berserk Eva, but… "Shouldn't we release her? If she can detect something, could it lead us to Shinji?"

"Great thinking. Suit up, I'll call Misato to authorize it."

* * *

"Wish we had time to put her on a leash." Asuka grinned as the two of them ran, flanking Unit 01.

"I do not believe that would be effective, unless we held her between us, and that would immobilize two of our hands and leave us vulnerable to being pulled off-balance."

"Because she's a bitch, Rei," Asuka translated. "And this is me saying this," Asuka added, grinning with all her teeth.

"Ah." Rei considered this. "You do not believe she is looking for Shinji or responding to his distress?"

"I just think we're lucky that they extracted that core from her and gave it to my Mom, and your Eva can use your core. She's limited by when she'll run out of power, so we won't have to worry about her for too much longer. Look sharp, Rei. This is a trap."

"Shinji was acquired as bait for Unit 01?"

"No, he's bait for the Commander and his family. To them, he's still Yui's son and Misato's little baby brother. Tabris too, I guess. I should have figured it out before… Don't look like that, Rei. I owe him for killing the bastard who killed Kaji."

There were several things Rei did not understand in that speech, but she was not certain how they related to the mission.

"Kaji trained Shinji, even if Shinji is an idiot. If Keel didn't know about an op with this many agents, then it has to be Gendo behind this, which explains how he could get Shinji. But Gendo doesn't want Shinji, or he would have taken Shinji with him back then. He wants Unit 01 and Instrumentality Yui's way. Come on, you're the one Ritsuko adopted. Sure, I'm the college graduate but you should be able to figure this out." It was obvious from Asuka even though she hadn't been filled in on what Kaji found until the start of the Shinji Hunt, which she was pissed about, but then she had been on watch. Imagine what would have happened if they'd taken her with them and left Rei on watch? If an angel got its tentacles into Rei's mind? On top of the threat of Instrumentality, she was the youngest and so worried that people hated her already. Asuka could handle what happened, but Rei couldn't have.

She was still pissed, but Rei was just a kid. It _was _classified before, so they couldn't have briefed her in front of the entire citadel, too. Not to mention that this was Rei's brother and finding out he wasn't totally evil seemed to have decreased her mope level.

"They mean to trade Shinji for me? Or Tabris?"

"Hopefully they don't know Tabris gives that much of a damn. Didn't you hear Misato say they probably left SEELE territory awhile ago? Although, I guess if Shinji is that important in the Scrolls…" She didn't know the secrets of the scrolls, so no point thinking too much into that, but, "Be careful, Rei. Stay back and let the Great Asuka Langley Sohryu handle it. I'll bet you my white sunhat that he wants to trade Shinji for you."

"The one with the large brim?" Rei thought this over for a moment. "I do not believe so. I wanted it in order to hide my face." Now? If people could look at her face and want to keep looking instead of make her go away?

"Well, you _should _want it because it looks good on you. You need a sundress, too, if we're talking makeovers. White, maybe with a lacy skirt that falls into a lot of folds…" See-through but not.

"To hide my legs?"

"No, so the skirt flares up when you walk and shows your legs. Like Marilyn Monroe?" Asuka sighed: she wasn't even going to try explaining that to Rei. "After you're done piloting, though. Verdammt LCL, ruining half my clothes…" One more thing that kept pissing her off! Worse than the bleeding, at least that was only once a month!

"It is because you rush through decontamination."

"Rei, remember what Misato said about somehow when you say things and you mean them earnestly it can sound like you're being a bitch because of how you say them? That was one of those times."

"How should I say it, then?"

"I don't know, maybe… Gah, I don't want to hear it anyway. I can buy more clothes, it's fun. LCL and all that scrubbing is ruining my skin."

"I do not understand why you complain so much."

"I don't understand why you complain so little. You should yell at people more, so they know that if you want to kill them, they'll know it and they can relax the rest of the time. You act like a doll, Wondergirl. Know how creepy dolls are?"

Rei considered this. "No." She did not understand why they would be found creepy.

Once again, Asuka wondered why she even tried. "Well, the important thing is that you are not going to trade yourself for Shinji, and under no circumstances are you going to get out of your Eva, understood?"

"Understood."

"Rei, Asuka, there are nine AT fields coming towards you!"

Asuka got into a defensive crouch, this close to cursing at what Ritsuko had told them. "What, abominations?" That one with two bodies was annoying enough, and now there were nine?!

"No, Evas!"

"Where?"

"Above you!"

Asuka looked up, sync rate automatically making her Eva's hand shade its four eyes. There they were, nine creepy blue Evas that looked like Fishmen coming down on wing-sails that looked more like the tailfins of fancy tropical fish.

Then one of them started stretching out, and out, turning into a twisting, sinuous shape… Asuka didn't need Ritsuko's announcement of, "Pattern Blue!" to tell what that was about.

Misato ordered "Rei, get clear! Keep following Unit 01. They're heading towards the Geofront! Asuka-"

"On my way!"

"The others are definitely Evas… SEELE not only letting an Eva get possessed, but ordering other Evas to support it…" Ritsuko made a fist.

Asuka ignored her, running at top speed back towards the citadel. "Taking the shape of a blue dragon…" Oh, it was _on_. She'd show this abomination who the true Sohryu was around here!

"Well, what else could keep Tabris busy?" Misato told her old friend, pouring a glass of cold water down her throat. Ow, that was a mistake. She'd have to hide it: commanding officers did not get brainfreezes.

"This angel's still a lot weaker than he is, but the signatures of the others' AT fields… Pattern Orange, but other than that, these are Rei's readings." Ritsuko grimaced. "It looks like Kaji was right."

"The dummy plug system…" Misato looked at Ritsuko. No, they couldn't tell Asuka there were baby Reis in there, souls or no souls. Not when Asuka would obviously refuse to hurt helpless little kids and try to repeat what Shinji did to disable that other possessed Eva, which had left Touji hurting like hell, but alive. Unlike Shinji, Asuka wasn't a fighter who hung back, dodged away while looking for an opening, and trying to do that with nine opponents, including the second to last angel? Still, "Asuka, they are remote controlled so pain won't affect their ability to fight and they may have cores. See if you can pull out the entry plugs to disable them!"

"Where is Tabris?" Ritsuko wondered. "I would think he would have shown up by now."

"Either they've launched an attack on _three _fronts or he knows something we don't. We can hope, but let's plan to rely on our own resources."

"Right." He had Keel's memories now, and even if he had to die for Complementation, appearing here still meant running the risk of being used to cause Third Impact. "Men. Always making us do all the work."

* * *

Shinji was not very relieved when he heard heavy thumps that had to be the footsteps of Evas running towards them, if only because the man he had dubbed the Chief Cosplayer didn't seem anxious at all. Even if they were under an overhanging roof so they weren't visible from the sky, just standing here facing towards the citadel and waiting meant this had to be a trap.

They'd tied him up very professionally, and of course they weren't stupid enough to leave him with any convenient sharp things, so there wasn't much to do but keep his eyes open and wait for the trap to be sprung.

He wasn't expecting _his _Eva to get here first and kneel down, reaching out towards the bearded man.

"Yui," he said, finally showing a emotion other than calculation or contempt, and walked forward to touch that hand with his own. Grief, grief and longing.

More than that. He'd missed her, like Shinji missed Kaworu. Except he'd known that this was the rock he leaned on, hadn't he? This was the person he would do anything for, while Kaworu mostly did things for Shinji, to make it easy for him to get out there, to meet people, to have a life.

Yui _was _this man's life, and that was as far as Shinji's brain was willing to follow this train of thought.

Unit 00 arrived next – where was Asuka? – And Shinji knew that this was worse than he'd thought when that Eva knelt, or crouched down to his level too. As close as an Eva could get, anyway. This wasn't the cavalry, this was more trouble.

"Naoko," the bearded man said, nodding. "I need Lilith's vessel."

Unit 00's entry plug unlocked. Unit 01 reached over to take it, pull Rei out the rest of the way, and when that distracted it was when Unit 00 lunged forward and punched the bearded man into a wall.

Shinji's Eva, Shinji's mother, Yui _screamed_, lunging forward but there was nothing but bloodied flesh, shattered bone and cloth ruptured by the distorted flesh left to fall into her hands. Rei's entry plug flew out of Unit 00, the emergency booster eject engaged, a second before Unit 01 whirled to tackle Naoko and begin to tear her apart with hands and teeth, screaming her rage to the heavens.

A pale wall of light appeared, slamming her to the side, away from Rei's Eva. "She has no core for you to take, Lilim," Tabris informed her. "And you do not have much time left at all."

One of the minions grabbed for both Shinji and his gun. Tabris glanced their way, and from the way the man grunted a moment before all of them were knocked down he'd known that taking Shinji hostage to restrain Tabris wasn't going to work. "Sleep," the angel said, and a moment later they stopped glowing as he withdrew his will from them. Unit 01 battered at the shield he was still manifesting between her and Naoko. "Shinji, are you alright?"

"I'm fine: what about Rei?" Shinji hadn't seen where the entry plug landed.

"The parachute deployed successfully, and none of the Evas my last sister infested appear to have noticed that she contains the soul of Lilith-" Suddenly Kaworu's gaze focused on Unit 01's hand, where the remnants of that man's body were being absorbed into the Eva. "So that was Gendo's true design." Interesting, but Kaworu did not seem especially worried. "Dividing Adam's flesh the way Lilith was divided… We are lucky the presence of the progenitors in Tokyo-3 was so strong that the elder angels all came here instead of sensing the presence in our refuge. Dr. Akagi, will you accept my help?" Since otherwise she would run out of power soon: She didn't have as big a battery pack as the other Evas because Rei _was_ her power source.

Unit 00 managed to get to her feet: her front was a mess, but Yui had been too furious to attack to disable.

"Child of Adam and Servant of the Lilim, act in accordance with your will," Tabris said, and Unit 00 began to glow with the same ghostly light he did. He nodded and turned back to the other Eva. "Half the flesh of Adam and half the flesh of Lilith in a single entity." So close and yet so very, very far. "Since you contain the soul of a Lilim, I could not merge with you without a great deal of effort, so there is no danger. I'll be back as soon as I can, Shinji," Kaworu said apologetically before using his field to swat Unit 01.

A lot harder than he'd ever hit Misato, judging from how high and how far she went, Kaworu flying after her.

Unit 00 walked over carefully and crouched in front of Shinji protectively, scanning the horizon.

Since Shinji could at least sort of wiggle along, he decided to head towards the knocked-out men. Trying to figure out how he could get at and open one of their knives was better than doing nothing. Wait. "Naoko, can you take me to Rei? Or someone who can get me out of these?"


	15. Fog of War

_Actually, this fic is the craziest AU I've written so far (for Eva), since there are the most degrees of separation between this Shinji and canon Shinji due to the cascade of changes. I've tried to do a lot of callbacks to aspects of his canon characterization, but I worry it will end up seeming like one of those fics where readers go, "Who is that in the Shinji suit?"_

* * *

"You bitch!" Asuka roared, thrashing in her seat with her eyes closed, just like her Eva thrashed in midair with the dragon's tail wrapped around it. Not cowering the way she had when the last abomination attacked her mind.

This one wasn't after _her_.

"Prepare to launch the beta-type Evas!" Misato ordered, even knowing that given the strength of the AT fields of even the blue Evas, the Evas that drew only on the souls of their pilots to power the AT field were at a significant disadvantage. No. That was sugar-coating it. "Asuka, Asuka, answer me! Is it after the core?" The S2 engine, the power her father sought to save the environment, a quest SEELE used to destroy it.

"What do you think?!" Asuka raged at her, but didn't even bother to open her blue eyes to give the General a glare. "Get your filthy tentacles off my mother!"

"Hang in there, Asuka!" Keep it busy! Misato cut the com and turned to Ritsuko.

"Tabris still hasn't reappeared." He and Unit 01 vanished over the Pacific Ocean. "Unit 00 is drawing power from Tabris, but I don't think it's due to encroachment." If not, Asuka wasn't the only one who would be having a conversation with an angel about what happened to people who screwed with other people's mothers. "She has Shinji and she's heading for Rei."

"Let me know when Rei's in the entry plug, but I'll let you tell her to stay away." Encroaching on Asuka couldn't cause Third Impact. Rei, though? Misato wouldn't hesitate to use every tool in her arsenal, including Ritsuko's Mom Voice.

Hikari Horaki's face appeared on one of the screens. "General Misato, we're ready to move out." Her face was pale and she looked worried for her friend, but she was determined to do what she could, for Asuka and for Touji!

"Pilots, it will take a massed attack for you to get through the AT field of even one of those Evas. Right now, they're circling around the Abomination." Like a school of fish. "Try to lure one away from the others, but I want no heroics! The angel appears to be trying to possess Asuka's Eva as well, and it will most likely go after yours before approaching the citadel." Trying to take the Lilim's advantage for itself. "Destroy the Evas if you can, but remaining free and luring it away from Rei and Unit 00 take priority. Is that understood?"

"Yes, General!"

"Launch the beta-type Evas!"

"AT field detected inside the Geofront! Pattern Blue!"

"What?" Did this one have two bodies? No: if it did, wouldn't it treat the Evas as other bodies?

Another face appeared on a screen, "Um, Miss Ritsuko?"

"Yes, Maya?"

The SEELE hacker looked like she wanted to apologize for interrupting, even though she wouldn't have been able to access the screen and speakers if Ritsuko hadn't had the Magi give her access, but, "His Holiness Tabris said that he'd thought of something, and would you please open a path from the Graveyard to the surface?"

"The Graveyard?" Ritsuko echoed. "How did he know about that?" Had her mother told him? "What is he going to do with them?" The failed Eva prototypes.

"Don't be dense, Ritsuko," another voice said, and a display showed barrier after barrier opening at the Magi's order. "It's them or the beta-type Evas, and then the pilots would be considered compromised. He won't do that to them."

"I got _that_, Mother," she said, annoyed, but, "Are we talking encroachment here?"

"He knows that wouldn't be safe." If they started fighting for control of the same body, mingling inside it? "His power level is equivalent to the two progenitor-types because he _is _a progenitor."

"Hold it." Misato leaned forward. "Are we talking about the creation of more abominations here?"

The woman on the screen looked annoyed by the stupid question. "Well, when a man and a woman lust each other very much, they create a host body for a soul drawn from Lilith…"

"Mother!" Ritsuko was divided between embarrassment and outrage.

"Or when a woman and a woman do some genetic manipulation," Naoko said apologetically, adjusting her avatar's red hat. "Ritsuko, I thought I'd made it clear that I just want what makes you happy."

Professer Fuyutsuki coughed. "Ahem, Dr. Akagi…"

"I thought I told you to call me Naoko."

"Sorry, Naoko. Are you saying that the souls placed in the Evas would be equivalent to Lilim souls, in that they're not individually capable of causing Third Impact?"

"Of course, dear."

"I understood what you meant," unlike the non-scientists, "I just needed to clarify it for the record. Let him have the bodies, we can apologize for giving away UN property if there still is a UN tomorrow."

"Yes, Commander," Misato agreed.

"Give me a moment, this is a little tricky to do for myself," Naoko said, blinking off the screen. Even Eva arms didn't bend certain ways.

Once the entry plug was back in Unit 00, they heard "General? Pilots Rei and Shinji Fuyutsuki reporting," Rei said as she and Shinji appeared on the same screen.

"I'm glad to see you're alright. Stay away from the battle, Rei."

"What about Asuka?" Shinji asked, concerned blue eyes looking over the back of Rei's chair.

For a moment, the surrogate mother overrode the general. "Shinji, those are natural fiber clothes!" And he'd gotten in an entry plug filled with LCL? With a girl whose crush he definitely would have rejected with varying degrees of horror if he'd ever found out about it?

"Children of Adam, abandoned by the Lilim," Tabris surveyed the graveyard of empty shells the Lilim were unable to give life to or unable to sustain it in. Yet they were still the undying flesh of his progenitor. "Come with me," he said gently, and held out his arms to them.

"Children of water and children flying on the wings of the storm," Ritsuko mused aloud as the white, birdlike not-quite-Evas attacked the sea monster-based ones. She would suggest calling the blue ones 'Dagonite Evas' if it weren't for the fact they most likely contained little Reis. Reim didn't work. Neither did "Tabrim?" No, she could see the inevitability now. "They're going to get called Cherubim, aren't they." She'd first seen Tabris close enough to get a good look at his face when six, and he'd started fighting Misato when he was five. He was fifteen now, a few months older than Shinji, but the world's first impression of him had been the glowing little boy who wasn't human, but that didn't mean he wasn't a child.

"They're avoiding the angel: are they strong enough to take it?" Misato didn't think so, from what she saw over Ritsuko's shoulder.

Ritsuko grimaced. "This is the last one, so I think I'd like to play this safe too if I was him. We've been getting too many surprises, and Keel was drawing on a mystic tradition, not actual science." So he could be just as wrong as everyone else.

"Right." Misato nodded. "Unit 01 is… inaccessible, Unit 02 needs backup and Unit 00… Naoko?"

"Yes?"

"Would you mind letting Shinji pilot?"

"Well, no, if Rei doesn't mind."

"Um, I'm not wearing a plug suit." Shinji blushed, since at the moment he wasn't wearing anything but what was left of his shoes.

"It's nothing I haven't seen before, young man." Naoko's avatar rolled her eyes.

"Is there anything else I could do to help?" Tabris asked, appearing in the holographic projection of the area that filled most of the room.

"And you're asking if we mortals have any ideas now, when Shinji is going into battle." Naoko was amused.

Tabris smiled, thinking of how to put words to this. "There are many Lilim who care for me, many Lilim who have let me take away some of the pain of their existence. To some, I am their hope, their god, their leader: I have even had caretakers who saw me as a child as well as an angel. To many I have been an acquaintance, someone they know they can count on for help and kindness. Yet, out of all of them, I think the only one I am a _friend _to is Shinji."

"It's the same for me, Kaworu," Shinji said, startled and made happy by those words. Oh, so this was joy. "I mean," he qualified that statement, because he didn't want to hurt anyone's feelings, "I have a great family: Dad, my sisters and I had a brother, Rei… and Asuka." Just being near her was difficult and annoying, but she was family. "Then there are the kids at school, and some of them are very nice, but… You're my friend, Kaworu." Not 'one of' his friends, his friend singular. Shinji wasn't a very social person, so he didn't really feel a need for any others, not when his home was full of people who cared anyway.

"Shinji," was all Kaworu said, and the look in his eyes was called devotion. The kind of love that mean, "_I would lay down my life for you and feel only joy that I could preserve something so precious, that I could grant you the chance to find happiness."_

"_That _is not friendship either," Naoko informed him. "Shouldn't absorbing a human have let you tell that? Never mind, what did the old men know about real, human love." Less than would feel a teaspoon.

Ahem. What interest exactly the abomination had in her little brother was also of importance to Misato, but the general had another abomination to deal with first. "Naoko, mind finding an intact road before letting Rei out? Hyuga, I want a car there to pick her up, and make sure of whoever is in it this time."

"Yes, General," he responded, trying to hide his embarrassment. Definitely.

"Mom!" Asuka screamed again, but this time was different, as the angel pulled Unit 02 closer.

"_Mom, stop cuddling the abomination!" _

"_But she's been so lonely. You poor little thing, you just wanted your daddy and someone to hold you, didn't you." _Aww. "_I'm not going to be one with you, but that doesn't mean I can't hold you, and- Don't be jealous Asuka, it's unbecoming in a young lady." _

The abomination's mental avatar blinked multiple eyelids up at her, uncertain as to how it had been reduced to the size of a Lilim infant and trapped by the Lilim's upper manipulators.

Kyoko went aww, rocking the child of Adam. "_She even looks like a blue dragon! It must be fate. Who's a little Sohryu, oh yes you are…" _

* * *

_Hikari Horaki is the beta-pilot officer for the same reason she's class rep: her sync rate isn't fantastic, but she's disciplined and can discipline others. _

_The Red Hat Society is based on a poem where a woman who has put up with a lot says, 'When I am old, I shall wear purple, do whatever the hell I want without having to give a damn about what anyone will think and take no more crap.' Of course, it is somewhat inconvenient when a giant military robot has this attitude, mostly because of the question, 'Where does the however-many-ton Evangelion sit? Wherever she wants to.' She was the last of the souls to transfer in, and she engineered the process the way she did the Magi. Mother Naoko, Scientist Naoko, Woman Naoko & Crone Naoko?'_

_I thought some version of Naoko should get sane enough to kill Gendo. Hell hath no fury like a giant robot._

_Caspar: proof that women, too, are capable of thinking with the wrong head._


	16. Clueless

Misato looked at Ritsuko for help.

She shrugged, asking why Misato thought _she _would be of any help here. "Don't look at me, I'm the last person who can tell anyone, 'No, you can't adopt angels.'"

Good point, Misato had to admit, looking up at her Dad to see that the commander looked rather amused, although he was also well aware of how much trouble all this was going to be. After all, he was the one who would get to explain this to the UN.

They were both aware that as long as they were still focused on the primary threat, they would have a good excuse for ignoring that Tabris was turning the Cherubim into humanoid form (he must have made sure they would have the capability), picking them up and flying them back to the embassy one by one, like a mother cat going back and forth picking up kittens to transfer them to another hiding place. NERV or the UN army attacking the embassy was always an option, so it wasn't like they were letting the abomination _escape _with a lot more mini-abominations to reinforce SEELE's armies.

Naoko and Shinji were guarding (never mind on whose behalf) the ones he hadn't gotten to yet, although it was more like babysitting or rounding them up, trying to keep them from sneaking off to pounce on the Dagonite Evas anymore, much less the beta-types. Ones who made more trouble than the rest were grabbed by Naoko until she handed them to Tabris.

Extracting the baby Reis from the Dagonite Evas looked like it was going to be a little more trouble: those definitely were entry plugs, but had the angel 'just' encroached or had they actually all been absorbed until they were nothing but pieces of the angel? It was possible for angels to appear to be Pattern Orange.

Regardless of whether or not Ritsuko ended up with a lot of more kids, although of course Misato would help, both Misato and Fuyutsuki also knew they weren't really in a position to say, 'No, you can't just take them home with you and keep them.' That was what Fuyutsuki had done with both Shinji and Misato after realizing what kind of abuse Shinji would face if he didn't: then there was Misato, and what happened to her mother.

It wasn't only Misato who was responsible for Ritsuko moving in: Fuyutsuki and Naoko had grown close during Naoko's period of house arrest, or rather not being sent to prison in exchange for what was technically forced labor at the citadel. When she made her decision to give herself to the Eva to clear the family name for her daughter's sake, so Ritsuko didn't end up as much of a target as Shinji, he'd promised to make sure that Ritsuko was taken care of as well. The precedent granted when he agreed so easily (or so it seemed) to Misato up and dragging Ritsuko home made it hard to say no when she did the same with her boyfriend, although Fuyutsuki _had _spent years with college students. So he'd known that they were going to be having sex anyway and at least if Kaji was living in Fuyutsuki's home, then if Kaji hurt Misato or she got pregnant after being introduced to every birth control method known to man (Misato's long isolation having made her decide that sex, being hugs plus orgasms, was one of the most awesome things ever) he knew _exactly _where the boy lived.

So that left Asuka as the only one arguing with Kyoko about whether or not the red Eva could keep the sixteenth abomination, and they all knew she wasn't going to win this one. Kyoko's mother instincts were so strong that even when her soul was drained out of her body and what was left of her mind couldn't recognize Asuka as her child because she always would see Asuka as the tiny little baby she'd first held in her arms, that empty shell practically incapable of thoughts and emotions was _still _insanely devoted and affectionate to the doll they gave her as a placeholder. What was left of Dr. Sohryu outside the Eva finally killed itself when a nurse made the mistake of taking the doll away to be washed without sedating her first.

The dragon-abomination Kyoko was cooing over seemed very confused. Becoming one with the progenitor. But… pettings. Becoming one with Father. But… soulpettings, and this Lilim was acting as though it was a progenitor. Was it possible to have multiple progenitors to be one with? Its instincts said that becoming united with a progenitor was paramount, but would seeking out more progenitors to be one with be superior to a single progenitor? Also, as the Lilim pointed out, actually merging would mean no more pettings, so was the true optimal solution to _locate _progenitors, but not actually merge with them?

Since Unit 02 had an S2 engine taken from an angel while Unit 00 normally ran on Rei's core, sending Unit 00 piloted by Shinji against Unit 02 plus an angel wouldn't work, especially since while Asuka wasn't going to betray the world, she also certainly wasn't going to help anyone hurt her mother. She might even get pissed off enough to lend her fighting skill to Unit 02 in order to punch Shinji and tell him to stay out of this, this was between her and her mother. Either way, Kyoko knew enough about Evas to break the cord right away and hopefully rip off the battery pack in order to disable Naoko with the minimum amount of pain, while it wouldn't be anywhere near as easy for Naoko to disable Kyoko.

Everyone was looking at Misato to make a decision, and even the people who had their own ideas weren't going to be any actual help, because the current situation continuing for as long as possible until something broke the stalemate was in their best interests. Fuyutsuki was hoping for a solution that didn't involve Naoko and his son getting heavily damaged unproductively, not to mention probably having to destroy Kyoko and possibly Asuka as well for high treason. Tabris and Shinji were clearly hoping that the newborn children wouldn't have to fight anymore, otherwise Tabris would be trying to strengthen them instead of get them away from the battlefield.

The sticking point was that General Misato of NERV and the UN Forces needed a reason to sit around while the world waited in fear of what was going to happen and then what was going to happen _next_ other than indulging the whims of a single woman who had willingly turned herself into an abomination, defending the human race or not. "Tabris, what did you do with Unit 01?"

Maya responded. "His Holiness dropped it into the Pacific Ocean in order to prevent Armisael from reaching it easily or any Lilim using it to create more Evas or cause Third Impact on their own."

Misato nodded: that was good thinking. The LCL contamination made the water pressure in the oceans much stronger. Submarines were restricted to fractions of their previous maximum dive depths. It wasn't just the Marinas Trench: with the way LCL distorted sonar, there were massive areas of the Pacific Ocean where they wouldn't be able to locate it, let alone get down there and get it. Tabris could, though, and the other abomination wouldn't have much trouble either.

"Hmm," Misato said next, and took a thoughtful pose to make it seem as though she was deeply cogitating about some marvelous plan and shouldn't be interrupted instead of prettymuch out of ideas. She could do plans, but she tended not to plan beyond a certain point because once a battle started, a plan was a list of things that didn't happen. Waiting for an opening to exploit, for the enemy to make a mistake or do something to give her an advantage was mostly the best idea, but people who didn't understand that liked to think that their leaders had it all planned out, since that could let them keep the illusion that as long as they did their parts there wasn't anything to worry about.

The best thing to do at this point would be to kick back and have someone bring her a (non-alcoholic, sadly) drink to sip on while watching the show and looking for her chance. Still, at least she could pass on to Maya that, "Even if letting it leave in peace was an option, and I don't think it will want to leave Unit 02 if what Kyoko says about it being motivated by the pain of loneliness is accurate, we couldn't let it do so with the means for it to create Third Impact out there unprotected."

"While Armisael remains here, even to stay with Dr. Sohryu, I'm not certain I should bring her back," Tabris himself replied, appearing in the hologram again with the cherub he was currently carrying wrapped in a towel. "Both Dr. Ikaris are criminals in the eyes of both the UN and SEELE: they intended to destroy the selves of all other Lilim for the sake of their own version of Instrumentality. She is out of power and won't be able to move at that depth, although I will make sure of that." Use his ability to detect the progenitors to make sure she wasn't walking along the ocean floor. "To be locked safely away from the soul of Lilith seems a better option than allowing her near other Lilim." Near people she might harm. Including Shinji.

"That's not what you were wearing before," Misato commented.

"And last night I forgot to congratulate you on getting promoted again since we last fought." Tabris smiled, happy the Lilim recognized her heroism, but, "The jet that arrived at the embassy yesterday was carrying the man who designs and manages my wardrobe. Since I'm the secular leader of SEELE now and I'm going to try to negotiate with the UN, I now need more… professional clothing." Something that labeled him as on an equal footing with other heads of state, suits and ties and the uniform of high-level diplomacy instead of robes and costumes suited to a young god who needed no ornamentation. The samite long-sleeved tunic belted at the waist over pants of the same material he'd worn while fighting before was just short of arrogantly simple, in addition to being similar to a gi. What he wore for official appearances was closer to the garb of western priests and monks, or Classical lines, but dresses and robes were just not meant to fly in. "He made me take a moment to change while I was asking everyone to help look after the children." To fill the bathtub so they would stay put in it, contentedly sitting there or swimming around if they hadn't gotten the desire to move out of their systems yet.

"It looks very school uniform." A black jacket and slacks that weren't _quite _a true black (Misato had dyed her hair dark blue, dark purple and all sorts of other colors for awhile, so she knew there were a lot of hues that looked enough like black to pass at first glance but weren't) over a white shirt that was probably rough silk or some absurdly-high thread count cotton? He looked very sharp, and the way he wasn't wearing a tie and the whole thing was nicely rumpled from all the huggy children he'd been carrying would have made Misato wolf-whistle if this was a few years ago, he wasn't Shinji's age and she didn't have an audience.

Tabris smiled brilliantly when she said that. She thought so too? "Yes, I like it." It looked like something Kaworu could have worn, or Shinji. Like he was a fellow student. "Armisael is confused but happy: other than that I can't tell what she'll do. The elder angels are as strange to me as I am to you Lilim. I'll avoid getting too close and provoking her."

"Provoking her?"

"She is the Angel of the Womb, and I was born from the rape of our father. If any of the other angels were unwilling to tolerate my existence, it would be her." His hologram looked down at the projection of the… not so much battle as argument surrounded by a stand-off thoughtfully. "Balance of power… I now know that Lilim are not only afraid of being hurt by others and because of this it is hard for them to reach out to others in order to save themselves from the pain of being alone, but it is easier for Lilim to believe that they will not be harmed if they have the ability to hurt the other Lilim. I will withdraw my power from Dr. Akagi when I leave, and Dr. Ikari was never on your side to begin with – or her husband on SEELE's, for that matter – but even though leaving her alive runs the risk of an Instrumentality without true Complementation, if you want to see if Armisael can be used for your defense, I won't object. Even though she is not a true Seed of Life, her nature means that she can bring forth a limited number of souls."

"For the beta-type Evas." And the ones she'd brought with her, the ones Gendo must have produced. "You're talking about a significant increase in the power of the UN forces." And even if she doubted they could put up much of a fight against Tabris' AT field, when he could casually warp light and block out subatomic particles down to and including the Higgs Boson, an Eva fighting conventional forces like, oh, most of SEELE's army was absolutely no contest.

"Not just that." He looked at her now, and she saw from his neutral expression that this was serious. "Gendo Ikari's creation of Rei verified that Lilith had no more souls to give, as written in the Secret Dead Sea Scrolls. Otherwise, Rei would have been granted an angelic soul born of Lilith in the absence of Adam instead of the soul of Lilith herself. Yet it has been seven years now, and Lilim have continued to have children. Not many, but some, and they possess minds and souls of their own. Lilith is barren, Adam is dormant and I have not called forth souls until today because I did not want to risk them experiencing the pain of the Lilim. Since there are no other Seeds, black or white, in this solar system that means that Armisael is the mother of the souls of every Lilim born for the last seven years, if not more. If she dies, then unless I become the one to grant souls to new Lilim your children will be born empty shells, like Dr. Sohryu before her death, that will wither away at the touch of LCL."

"This is… Touji's sister?" Lt. Junior Grade Hikari Horaki asked quietly, but they all heard it in the silence that followed Tabris' words.

Tabris looked at each of them as he spoke. "One of the reasons both the Committee and Yui Ikari committed their crimes is that they knew the population boom of the last century had exhausted Lilith's capacity to bear, and the human race would soon end. SEELE wished to preserve the remaining souls so they could experience a paradise for the rest of eternity, and Yui Ikari wished for humanity to fuse into a single lonely god that would journey out into the stars containing all human knowledge, in order to prove that you once existed. They triggered Second Impact and began the destruction of the planet Earth because Instrumentality was the only way for you Lilim to have a future. If you insist on refusing Instrumentality, then the Lilim must find some other way to survive. I have walked among the Lilim and seen them endure too much suffering, too much pain. Even if we disagree about Instrumentality and Complementation, I agree with you in this, Misato. For it to have all been for nothing, for the Lilim to have no future is an unbearable thought."

Misato leaned forward, resting her elbows on the rim of the command deck and resting her chin on one of her fists. "To survive on our own, we need a source of souls and a way to grow ourselves some damn food." Imagine a time when they could no longer afford to use arable land to grow hops for beer! "I take it that you're backing off on Instrumentality for now, but if we can't find a way to survive, you'll trigger Instrumentality to save whatever's left of us at that point, if we don't decide to do it ourselves?"

The angel nodded, glad that she understood. "Every minute, Lilim are dying without knowing complementation, without escaping the pain of the loneliness that drove Armisael to reach Adam, but if even my elder siblings are capable of loneliness, if Keel deceived so many for so long, we must be _certain _that the ritual the Scrolls describe will truly give the Lilim not only survival, but a true end to the pain of their existences. If not, some other way must be found to bring about a true paradise. I too have promises to keep to those I protect, just as you fight to protect the rest of this world, Misato. I will leave the matter of Armisael to you." To her, as opposed to the UN in general.

If it weren't for the audience, Misato would have told her old enemy that he'd gotten a hell of a lot less clueless since absorbing Keel, although she was relieved it was clear he was still himself. Instead, she said, "Hold it," as he started to fade from the hologram. "Can I have your word that you won't use the children you made from _our _materials to attack UN territory or forces, _or _initiate Third Impact?"

"Of course." Before, he would have wondered why she was even asking: now he just squeezed the child he carried a little, just slightly.

"In that case, in exchange for leaving Armisael to us, I will allow you to remove them to your embassy." There, now it was a matter not of not stopping him but deliberately deciding to let him do it. "We can talk about you taking them out through our airspace when we discuss the return of Unit 01."

He nodded, bowing his grey head to her in respect just slightly. "That is acceptable, for now. There's no danger of Third Impact in them staying this close to the geofront, and since I'll be staying here myself I would have asked to keep them with me, if you didn't mind. They are very young, even though they're less powerful than I was as a child. My caretakers after I left the lab were good Lilim, but I wish to look after these children myself." He looked down at the one in his arms and smiled at the pale little child, but he was still worried by something. "Armisael's store of souls won't last forever. I must decide if I am willing to bring children into this world, not like these but children that will be born as Lilim, to experience the pain of Lilim existence. To know that suffering and loneliness. Children who will belong to their Lilim parents, not to me, just as Armisael's could have lived out their entire lives never knowing she was their mother nor mourning her death."

* * *

_Re. Kaworu's outfit: think the very pricy version of what he's wearing in Campus Apocalypse. _

_For some reason, I found myself thinking of the Persona 4 protagonist and Nanako. Probably just the whole 'silver-haired good guy in school uniform with kid' thing, since Souji Seta/Narukami Yu is a blank protagonist. Also Nanako is just so damn adorable it would be hard for even a little angel to be comparable. _

_A bit of character evolution _towards _canon instead of away from canon here. As I mentioned in an earlier A/N, anime Kaworu sacrificed himself because Lilim life was worthwhile despite/because of pain and they were the ones who should have a future as individuals. Here, Tabris has fully gone from thinking of pain as a reason _not to _live, with instrumentality and complementation the only option, to viewing the pain Lilim experience as a reason they should continue living and find happiness to make up for it._

_In the anime, Kaworu was an angel, and isolated, and apparently they missed what he learned through music (Look up the lyrics of Ode to Joy: it explains a lot that he views it as truth). _

_Of course, now that Tabris is in control of SEELE, he's going to hold it to those standards, make it actually work for the good of Lilimkind. And when a fifteen-year-old essentially-god says get out there and feed the hungry…_

_Both versions are idealistic, and while the determination of an idealistic can be a powerful force for good, like all powerful things it can also be dangerous and have collateral damage. Like overlooking things. And they can be rough on those who don't live up to those ideals. Really, the old men have no one to blame but themselves for what's going to happen to them now that they've failed to kill Tabris._


	17. Coda

"How are you feeling, Rei?" Ritsuko asked, closing the locker room door behind her after getting off-duty.

"I am fine," Rei said, then decided that although that was the normal Lilim response, her mother might want more specifics. "This is very pleasant," the angel said as she sat on an inner tube in a pool full of blue dragonfish minievas/baby angels… Whatever the Rei/Evas given souls by Armisael should be called.

Ritsuko put the towel she'd brought in with her on the arm of one of the lounge chairs and reached up to make sure the bun she'd tied her hair into was still secure.

"I do not think you will be able to read without the book getting wet," Rei said, and Ritsuko found out why a second later when splashing water hit the back of her legs.

"That's fine," Ritsuko said, stretching. "I need to do some laps myself."

Rei looked disappointed. "I do not believe it will be possible to swim in a straight line for very long either." So she hoped those weren't the only reasons Ritsuko was here.

The Reyvas were playing around so much it almost looked like there were twice as many of them as the pool, doing flips, diving under each other & clearly having as much fun swimming as Rei did. One of them was trying to climb up the side of the pool, though, and Ritsuko followed the gaze of determined red eyes to see a beach ball, one of many around the sides of the pool. "They are not good at controlling where they land," Rei explained. "I have been getting up to put them back in again every so often." It didn't take long for the balls to be hit out again.

"As long as you're all having fun," Ritsuko said, walking over to at least give the frustrated little Reyva back her ball before she started crying.

The surface of the pool was bouncing almost as much as the Reyvas were, surging with discombobulated waves. The lights under the pool's surface made the waves cast strange shadows on the wall, shadows made up not of darkness but light, light and water.

"That's a nice swimsuit, Rei," Ritsuko finally noticed after she got in. "Did Asuka help you pick it out?" It was a very simple blue one-piece, just as demure as Rei's old black swimsuit, though. Rei must have insisted: Asuka would have tried to make her get something more daring.

Rei shook her head. "Blue lace agate."

"Hmm?"

"I looked it up. This is the color of blue lace agate."

Ritsuko looked at her more closely. Porcelain skin was shaded with blue, reflections and refractions tinted by the blue of the swimsuit and the blue it brought out in her hair. A summer sky blue, a living sea over white coral sands blue. "You look wonderful, Rei."

Wonderful: full of wonder.

Not a winter, no, but a summer child. A summer by the sea, with the sand in her toes and the wind in her hair. Not a dead sea but the waves Ritsuko once played by, that rocked the cradle of life.

Ritsuko didn't even need to add 'and I'm not just saying that because I'm your mother,' because she saw from Rei's satisfied little smile that she believed it, was pleased by the result of her efforts to locate a swimsuit just this color online. "I am uncertain if red coral or carnelian would best 'bring out my eyes.'"

"Coral," Ritsuko said firmly, smiling back. "Definitely coral," for her little mermaid.

* * *

Misato had gotten used to sleeping under just about any circumstances while being shipped around the world with Naoko. Sometimes _in_ Naoko. There really wasn't a safer place to sleep than inside an AT field, after all. Her own mother disappeared before Misato was reunited with her, but Naoko Akagi was just as much her stepmom as the Prof was her stepdad.

Jet planes were nothing. Jet planes meant safety, or at least that what happened while she was on them was not her problem, since she was either being extracted or was about to be dropped off somewhere, in which case she should sleep while she could, right?

She made a slightly annoyed sound when she turned over and didn't feel Kaji, Ritsuko or Shinji, but she was all grown up now. She didn't need someone else in her bed in order to sleep anymore, so she just rolled over and put a headlock on a pillow.

Muzzily she thought that she needed to either acquire some more people or get a pet or something. Not a cat: Ritsuko had cats, and they didn't much like being grabbed. What was the opposite of a cat? A fish? A bird, maybe? Penguins were cute.

Wasn't there a kind that could double as grenades? That would be handy…

She woke up as the plane started to land, pushing back hair she'd dyed very dark purple for old time's sake and wandering into the bathroom to freshen up a bit, ignoring the person who suggested that maybe she should buckle up, because they were landing?

By the time they hit the pavement she was awake and ready to go. "This is the first time I've landed in SEELE-held territory while still inside a plane," she said cheerfully to Hyuga as she hefted a large, reinforced suitcase. Of course, if Kaji was here she would have had to remind him that crashes didn't count as landings, they were _crashes_. "Oh, right, we're calling it Refuge now." Instead of 'the overrun parts of Central Asia, India, China etc. etc.'

"Tabris has already arrived," he informed her, adjusting his glasses.

"Well, of course. He's not going to risk someone killing me because they think I'm going to attack him or because I attacked him before." Blasphemer that she was.

"Can I get that for you, General?" Hyuga asked. He had her permission to call her Misato, but right now they were on the clock.

Misato said "No, there are some things a woman has to take care of personally." When the door finally opened he heard the muffled clink inside the suitcase as she headed down the stairs.

The cameras had been left on the edge of the tarmac, but Misato knew how to read lips herself so she was still perfectly polite to Tabris, who introduced her to Maya and several other staffers too important to risk traveling through UN airspace to reach the embassy. "And this is Captain Aoba, head of my guard."

Misato shook his hand. "I've seen footage of Tabris in SEELE territory: I'm definitely not going to ask what he needs a guard for." Even though Tabris' AT field would keep an enthusiastic crowd from surging forward and crushing _him_, apparently it was as much trouble to keep contact between a beloved ruler and his people reasonably serene as a hated one.

"And I won't say I'm disappointed you're not ten feet tall and fire-breathing," the young man with hair hanging down to his shoulders said wryly. Her husband had exaggerated _other _measurements when telling them about her. "I'd like to apologize for the loss of your husband. We've never had an incident like that." They had weapons, but what they really had to worry about were thieves and spies. Tabris was sent a lot of gifts even though he'd let it be known that although he was grateful for the thought, he would be giving most of them away in turn to help provide for the refugees.

"Now, I _know_ you've had multiple assassination attempts," Misato said. The UN had certainly tried to destroy SEELE's trump card before admitting there really wasn't anything that could handle an AT field like that except another AT field.

"Yes, but on his holiness." Not against people who actually had to worry about bullets.

"Good point," she had to admit.

Only Hyuga, Tabris and his own guard captain accompanied her to the grave. She was officially here just to bring Kaji home, but only Hyuga had asked why she'd specifically said for them not to dig up the grave before she got there. She hadn't answered him, of course.

"You read his will," she said when she saw the gravestone, which was by a tree near the fenced edge of a garden. Kaji had taken over a patch of the walled estate Fuyutsuki bought to Shinji could run around in relative safety to grow melons, to get some personal experience of how growing things worked, what soil was like for the sake of understanding what was happening to the world. He was so aware of the effects of Second Impact, no wonder she'd never suspected him of working for SEELE.

Maybe he'd wanted to find out why something so terrible happened, and then decided that if it happened, he was going to make sure that it was worth it? That the world didn't end with a whimper whether they ran out of fertile ground or all died of old age first?

Of course, the reason he'd grown melons specifically was obvious.

"He liked this place," Tabris remembered fondly. "He did say that he'd like to be buried here, until you forgave him and let him come home. I wonder: if I was a Lilim, might I have guessed then?" That Kaji knew he was going to be targeted before very long, that he'd decided to use his death as a catalyst, as verification he'd found out something that mattered just that much and a guarantee that it _would _be found out, because Misato would never let his death be for nothing? Would not have stopped digging until she also found the truth?

Lowering her suitcase to the ground, Misato undid the latch and crouched down. "You might want to get back, or raise your AT field." The sides of the case spread out to reveal beer.

Bottles of it, not cans, carefully packed to fit the maximum number in and wrapped around with straps to give them some padding and secure them to the sides.

When Misato straightened up both men stepped back, Tabris began to glow slightly and she took a deep breath.

"You _jerk, _Kaji!" _Smash! _"That was a full bottle! You made me waste beer, you bastard!" _Smash, smash! _"Oh, that's it, I'm not going to say get up here right now or I'll kill you because I'll kill you anyway!" Misato screamed at the grey stone. "I'm not even _drunk _yet and I'm already, I'm already…" Crying.

And he had to say that he was doing this because he didn't want her to die.

Just like her father, making sure she survived but not saving himself, she was so certain that she was going to die, passing out as the world spun around her and then she'd _wished _she was dead, screamed and screamed until she forgot words, first because there was no one to hear and then there was no one willing to hear, they'd left her there and no one was coming to save her.

Well, someone had, and now she had a gun even if she didn't have an Eva anymore and could save herself, but, "You _idiot_, Kaji. You _knew _I was going to cry. You _knew _and you didn't even try to save yourself, you didn't even give me a chance to help you and… How could you do this to me! You know I can't stand feeling helpless, you know that!"

She was on her knees now, and the burning sun of the eternal summer beat down on her shoulders. The air smelled of beer instead of green, but she knew the beer was warm, nothing like the crisp cold of bars at night full of people and dancing, days out on the patio with a cooler and laughter.

There were the tips of two fingers on her shoulder now, the abomination's tentative touch, wanting to help her but knowing that although what she needed, what all Lilim needed was touch, comfort and someone to listen she might refuse his company, his help. Might take it as pity or simply not want anyone but Kaji right now.

They were there only briefly, she knew, and perhaps he might take them away if she did not respond, leave her to let it all out, or perhaps he might embrace her anyway, tell his guard to do nothing with a glance and let her bruise her knuckles trying to punch him, exhaust her arms trying to throttle him for failing to protect Kaji.

Wasn't he the one who had warned her that this was inevitable? That she wasn't the only one who had suffered and SEELE wasn't the only cause of suffering: the lives of Lilim were brief and full of pain, and why was she so determined to stop him from trying to fix that?

She remembered an earnest child, an angel, an abomination, too unable to comprehend why she would want others to suffer as she was suffering to even grow frustrated with it. He'd smile when he saw her again, because hello and because he was simply happy in a way humans weren't, could enjoy the presence of another without the fear of being hurt that was inevitable for humans. She'd hated him for it, wanted to teach him pain and frustration, wanted to destroy all of SEELE and his protectors who became those he protected until he was left alone and could finally scream in the same grief and rage she felt.

To him it was obvious that she would die, or Kaji with his risk-taking, or Ritsuko who might have a gun and her brain but didn't have half of Kaji's skills. She'd been so desperate to regain a family, to protect what she now had and she'd _hated _him for warning her that losing them was inevitable. Tried to deny it and couldn't, and maybe it was to spite him that she'd managed to accept it, throwing it back in his face.

At first, she'd lied when she said that she knew and she didn't care. Even if she couldn't keep them safe, keep them with her forever she wouldn't let anyone hurt them, no, that was going to happen too.

She'd _wanted _to believe in a happy ending: after all, wasn't she a heroine with a tragic past? Didn't she have a giant robot, wasn't she battling evil with her faithful companions?

But the only happy ending was an _ending_, was what SEELE preached, and she'd seen the temptation of it. Maybe if she hadn't had the abomination to hate, maybe if she hadn't been so determined to shatter what she thought was his dream as though that would protect her own, maybe she would have decided what Kaji decided.

That she wanted to protect him, protect Ritsuko, little baby Shinji, the old man and Naoko no matter what.

Even if it meant the end of the world.

Because that just wasn't how the real world worked, so there really wasn't any other way, was there? Everyone died, everyone would be separated in the end. Unless the world became something entirely different from the one humanity built, from the one where all the people she loved were born.

The _sight _of those red eyes used to make her skin crawl, despite her anger and how it imitated real bravery. Now she was actually grateful that he was touching her, even if it was just her thin jacket. That he was trying, that he cared. He had cared the entire time, that wasn't a lie even though at first she hadn't wanted to see that. Had wished he was telling her lies to break her heart instead of terrible truths. Asking her to listen so that he could save her too, even as she threatened everything he cared about. But then, wasn't this entire world threatened with death and heartbreak? And if even angels were capable of it?

Would he too experience pain when he lost a loved one?

He'd been angry when Kaji died, and was it only for the sake of Kaji and the Lilim who loved Kaji?

Would he suffer if Shinji died? Because Shinji would die, unless the world decided to go through with instrumentality before his time came.

She realized that actually, she didn't want to know the answer. Not only because she didn't want to see Shinji die, but because she didn't want to see him sad.

Anymore.

That was what sympathy was, wasn't it? Feeling _with_. He'd known she would feel pain when Kaji died, and that by itself hurt him, to see her suffer. To see all the Lilim suffer, when he could end it. He could end it right now, kill Armisael and do whatever else it took to save billions of lives, end the suffering of billions.

But he'd listened, enough to stand by while others suffered even if she knew it was hurting him. Enough to see her like this and not fly to NERV right now. Enough to let the Lilim make their own choice.

Instrumentality or extinction? Death and suffering or peace and paradise, all souls one, all selves embracing?

She couldn't make that choice, not now, but she could decide to take his hand, to squish him up against her like he was Shinji, tuck his head under her chin and be glad that at least someone was immortal, someone wouldn't be lost.

Maybe she would see Kaji again. Wasn't instrumentality supposed to be attaining the power of a god, and it was a useless god who couldn't bring back the dead, who couldn't let her see her Kaji again.

Well, one way or another she'd see him again. And she'd go on living until then, because that's who she was, and what he would have wanted.

* * *

The sun shone down through the upper windows of Shinji's sanctuary, and as so many times before Kaworu sang in Asuka's language words that meant _"Whoever had the good luck, to be the friend of one who was their friend as well." _

Shinji couldn't help but think of Kaji as he played and heard, _"Whoever won a noble woman, rejoice with us!"_

So many wonderful things in this world: "_Kisses and wine, and a friend loyal onto death." _

Whoever had just one person they could call their own, just one true companion, how could they not be full of joy? That was the question the song asked, or the truth it sang to all the world.

A song in praise of the joy to be found in life, in true companions: yes, it called Joy a goddess when Kaworu was their bright godling, their hope, the one whose shrine they made pilgrimage too, but was a vision of heaven on earth after being turned into goo any more depressing than one you had to be dead and rotting to get into?

It was a beautiful ideal, and there were a lot of things worth living for, but Shinji understood now that Kaworu really had once thought it was that simple: why should people be sad, when loneliness could be taken away, leaving only those wonderful things? He might know more about how bad people could be because of Keel, because of understanding that it wasn't just temporary insanity born of grief but real twisted rage and cruelty that made people do some of the things that drove refugees into SEELE's hands because once accused of being on their side, there was nowhere else to go.

Shinji had Dad, Misato and Kaji to protect him from the consequences of being his parents' son. A lot of people hadn't been so lucky. Maya had just been a daughter of a friend of a graduate student of someone who had worked on data from the Antarctic Expedition: Japan had lost enough people to Second Impact's tsunami because of the coasts, survived by enough neighbors and family because of the mountains, that otherwise, Shinji would have bet money she'd be dead by now, especially since she _was _smart enough someone could have thought she might have known or contributed to something, if he wanted to make a bet not just on a sure thing but on the fragility and cruelty of human life with Kaworu. With Tabris, who was still enough of an optimist to think that things could be better. That there could be peace, safety and openness before enough years passed, enough people died that the hatred wasn't so raw, the wounds weren't so fresh.

Shinji remembered figuring out why he couldn't have friends, except for Misato. Why people would hate him, pretend to be kind just so they could stab him or do worse things because of who his parents were. Kaworu still believed in people too much, because he'd gotten along with people. Many of whom would hate him now they knew he was Tabris, assuming that how Kaworu acted was the lie instead of seeing the truth.

Shinji wasn't talking to any of Tokyo-3's musicians anymore, wasn't going to let Kaworu talk to his other old friends either. He didn't want to see the dismay in those eyes, didn't want to be reminded of the heartbreak Kaworu must have felt when he thought Shinji hated him. Even worse than the ones who showed their hatred right away would be the ones who led him on, trying to figure out how to lure him into a false sense of security so they could get something past his AT field. Ritsuko had done it, and she hadn't even been trying.

Shinji didn't want to be the reason Kaworu let his guard down. Not if it killed his friend. So… if the angel felt safe because Shinji was there, then he had to make sure it really was safe, didn't he?

He wasn't exactly sure, not having a lot of experience with this, but he thought that might be one of those things friends were for.

"_Be embraced, ye millions!" _

* * *

_And the rest is Cold War-Era (specifically the defrosting… was the word Glasnost?) politics meeting a lot of big public technobabble coverage debate, like the theological debates sometimes held by rulers to decide which particular religion or faction thereof would be the official one of their country, which was generally more about the economics and politics than the actual articles of faith… Most people aren't going to have enough of a degree in metaphysics to understand enough of what's going on to make up their own minds, so it's a matter of who they trust to know what they're talking about. On the level of the people in the streets, it will still be all about the ideology/what they feel, as per usual._

_The Japanese Revolution was a democratic movement that restored the Emperor for the sake of legitimacy and such (god-kings are good for that). Since Tabris essentially is a god-king, both in terms of power level and in that he has an actual religion (see Zoroastrianism) and he's going to try to make things more open insofar as that can _happen _without pissed-off anti-SEELE terrorists coming in and starting to kill people in the streets (remember, it's not just true believers, it's people who fled or ended up there because otherwise being _mistaken _for believers meant pretty certain death)…_

_I do think he'll end up doing a good job, since he cares and has learned/is willing to admit he was wrong, but I don't think _he'll _think so, since he was raised with unrealistic beliefs and expectations quite deliberately. Near certainty he'd end up full of guilt and self-hatred for his repeated failure/inability to bring (impossible) perfect happiness to the Lilim when they, or at least some of them were counting on him if it weren't for Shinji, there to remind him what canon!Kaworu knows well, which is that life _is _pain and the right thing to do is get over it and not let that stop one from finding all the joy that's there as well._

_Kaji's ghost is totally watching from wherever and saying that since the hypotenuse got himself killed, Misato and Rits should totally hook up now. They can invite Maya, he checked her (background) out quite throughly while he was there, puns intended._


	18. Words Afterward

_So I yielded to the temptation to write more of this 'verse instead of working on my oodles of unfinished fics. At least there's some actual Shinji/Kaworu fluff in here. _

* * *

"So I was standing there in NERV HQ watching you cry on national television. International, once Ritsuko and the UN science people go over it looking for brainwashing patterns or creepy subliminal messages or whatever's in vogue with the professional paranoids.

"Crying. You started _crying _because you couldn't turn all of humanity into the right kind of blobby mass mind."

"Misato Katsuragi, you will not mock my people's hopes."

"I'm not mocking _that_," was her response, although it was half the point. "It just reflects badly on me, to have an archnemesis who cries like that. It was like something out of a shojo manga. Pretty as a picture. Your eyeshadow didn't even run."

"Even Lilim need to wear makeup under stage and television lighting." Otherwise it would make even them look washed-out and inhuman.

Misato rolled her eyes, even though there was no way he should be able to see her. "Like I said at the embassy, I used to be a media darling too, Tabris. But a tearful confession, a god begging his people's forgiveness: everyone on our side is going to take one look at it and think it was staged for propaganda. To make you seem more human."

There was no response, even though it would only take Tabris a flicker of will to write a response to her message, no matter what he was busy with now.

So, "_I _know it wasn't," she typed into the device modeled on the Cold-War-Era communications link between Washington and Moscow. "You're really upset, aren't you? Still." Even though it was three hours since that live broadcast – it took two and a half for Ritsuko and Hyuga to go over it for the command staff, even though it wouldn't be released to the general public for at least another ten hours. "Upset enough to take everything the wrong way instead of being eternally optimistic. You really are becoming more human." _Poor bastard, _she thought, although what most of her felt was triumph.

Even though she knew her archnemesis wasn't evil, had never been evil as such, she had still called him up in order to gloat, even though others were hoping to get intel out of this exchange. She was going to _savor _this, she told herself. Wasn't this what she'd spent all these years wanting? For him to be crushed, for the world to be saved from him and the threat of instrumentality?

So white: pure and perfect, even in his sadness. Crying because he loved humanity, and had wished only to give them eternal happiness.

"I know you're technically a woman trapped in a man's body," she typed next, because both Lilith and the so-called Adam had two X chromosomes, "but did you have to make it so obvious? It doesn't help that you're straight." For _Misato's little brother_.

"To think that years ago, I would have liked it if you had joked with me," was the response that came now. "To be cruel to those who reach out to you, to wound all those around you: such is the nature of the Lilim. I forgave you for it before I met you, Misato, but I still regret that I cannot cure you of it. I regret that I cannot unite you with Kaji in eternal happiness. I regret that the billions of Lilim who died at my birth may have died for nothing but a fantasy. I regret that I let myself be deluded, and used to lure others with promises that may prove false. I know that you eventually admitted to yourself that I possess a heart. I know you always wished to see it broken. When I saw their faces, all looking to me with hope, it broke. I feel no need to justify that to you or the UN, much less demean it by treating it as mere strategy. Over the long term I will try to create peace between my people and the UN, but for now, my care must be for those who chose to put their futures, their hope, in my hands. I will take what you have said into consideration when I address your government and people, but for now, I must do what I can for the people in front of me.

"…But, since I do comprehend Lilim and their strategies now, I shall warn you that turning the blade of your tongue against me, using your words to make me feel worse will only make me yearn all the more for that which still gives me peace and happiness. There is no way of saying this without you taking it as a threat against your brother, Misato, but I wish he was here very much already, and I have the power to make it so. Kidnapping a pilot would be an act of war, but our peoples are at war already, is that not so?

"At this point, I feel there is very little that could be done to make matters any worse than they already are. So please, do not tempt me to be selfish, Misato, when there are so many who have suffered so much more than I ever will, so many who need comfort far more than I do.

"I am aware that many Lilim regard tears as a sign of weakness, and weakness as an invitation to attack. That many of you think that now is the time to strike, when the other abominations have been dealt with and our government is in disarray. I am also aware that since I do not want you to attack my people, an effective way to remind you that _I _am Refuge's defense, and I am not weak is a show of force.

"I have acted with restraint my entire life, and you and others have grown used to that. In the beginning, when the world first discovered my existence, the UN advised all of you not to dare provoke me because of my power. I am glad that you fear me less, that you know that I would not repeat Second Impact, but if you acknowledge that I care for Lilim lives, then you must know that I will not allow a return to open warfare.

"So I am tempted on two fronts to do as my heart wishes, Misato. To use the power I command to take what I desire, and to remind you that I do have the power to do as I please. To please myself and protect my people with one stroke? You think Rei and my other sister," Armisael, "together might be enough to oppose my power, but they are both Black Seeds. They were crafted to be mortal. They can tire, they can exhaust their strength, and while Rei is young the soul she wields is old, Misato. Old and already near the end of its appointed lifespan, just like the Lilim race it brought forth, while I shall be eternally young. That is the power and immortality I alone possess upon the earth, the existence without age and death I dreamed of sharing with all of you. But I cannot grant it to you, and you cannot match it, even with the Evas crafted of Adam's flesh.

"I cry because all of you will _die_, Misato, while I will live eternally. So do not drive me to seek comfort, do not drive me to provoke you, no matter how much I wish to treasure all the time that you, your brother and my younger sister have left. Do not delude yourselves into thinking that you have the power to bring about my end. Only one can kill me, and only if I so choose. Do not delude yourselves into thinking that you can force that choice either, whether it be through threats to my people-"

So he knew about that plan, Misato thought. If the angel cared about the SEELE civilians, then there were people who would see that sort of thing as a weakness. She didn't but it was still an _opening_, and openings were to be ruthlessly exploited

"Or through cruel words. I may not possess the power to be a god of salvation, but I have been a god of destruction from the moment of my birth.

"Do not taunt Cthulhu, Misato Katsuragi.

"All joking aside, I am not in the mood. I would like to speak to Professor Fuyutsuki, however."

Misato's eyebrows rose. The Great Traitor?

"Does he have any advice on providing homes for people, or what makes a good foster family? I lived temporarily with a few people who were very kind while I was in hiding, but I am not sure how to go about finding families for the little ones. The Lilim who took me in knew that they did so at great risk to themselves: they were all kind and generous souls. I want these children to have a place where they are truly welcome, and not just because of the prestige it would give the family to be graced with the presence of one of my creations. Even though Fuyutsuki is hated among my people, it is clear that you respect him and Shinji loves him dearly: I respect your judgment, so I wish the benefit of his.

"…Of course, I should not have asked for his aid after threatening to kidnap his son, daughter, and granddaughter, even if what I meant is that although I wish for your company and safety, I would prefer not to kidnap you. Forgive me. I am not used to being upset. I will have to learn not to let my emotions make me act unwisely or unkindly, but this is something all Lilim must learn, even if it is something that you can never master.

"…And I realize I miss emoticons. I'm aware they're far too informal for this sort of communication, but simply words, without the sound of another's voice, or the light in their eyes… Actually, I miss texting. Informal communication with Lilim as simply another Lilim, their equal and friend. I _could _manage to generate a phone conversation while in a meeting, but I liked the brevity and informality of those notes.

"I am not quite certain why I am telling you this. The two of us were never friends, although I am glad you came to respect me as an enemy, to see me as a person instead of simply an abomination. It's not as though I could confide my true thoughts in Shinji, either, as much as I wished for the day when it would be otherwise.

"I think I should end this communication for now, unless you have some real advice, or news? I am among my people right now. I should not wish to be somewhere else."

With someone else.

Oh, he had it _bad_.

And since he could write good love poetry, it was probably a good thing that Shinji's reaction to poetry was to analyze it instead of be affected by it.

"And yet I am glad that I can experience some fraction of the pain the Lilim feel, in being separated from their loved ones. I am happy for this, and yet it makes my inability to reunite them with their loved ones, to grant them complementation, even more of a tragedy. I wish to be reunited with Shinji, but at least he is alive, and I have power I can use to negotiate time with him. How much more must you be suffering, Misato Katsuragi, when your husband is dead because I was unable to protect him, and you cannot be reunited without that which you have fought against your entire life coming to pass? How much more must those caught on opposite sides of this war, without influence or friends who can get letters to their loved ones," the way Kaworu had used the embassy to send Kaji's letters, "be suffering?"

She could really hate him sometimes. For a lot of reasons, a hell of a lot, but especially that compassion. That frustrating compassion, that desire to be _friends_ with her when she'd wanted to smash his small body with her Eva's fist. How dare it pretend to be human! How dare it pretend to be innocent, to be better than her?

For Tabris to _really _be better than her? For SEELE's propaganda to be the _truth_? That thought was even more infuriating.

And now, she mused, leaning back in the leather spinny chair generals got, there were _more of them_.

Based on human population throughout history and how long it had taken Lilith's store of souls to be exhausted after the population explosion of the Twentieth Century? Armisael could buy them six hundred years. _Maybe_. If the world's population remained at around two billion instead of decreasing as they ran out of arable land, but if Tabris really could use his powers to do something about that in limited areas, without Third Impact?

Unless they could get more Black Seeds somehow, at some point what Tabris said after that battle would come true – that they would need to use him, a White Seed, as the source of souls for new humans.

If he hadn't told them that about Armisael, if they'd killed that angel like all the others, they'd be dying on the vine right now. Unless he gave them souls. For children that would be like him, not like _them_. Humanity could have been replaced without ever knowing it… Heck, they were already in the process of being replaced: everyone under seven, of not older, was a Child of Armisael, not a Child of Lilith, and Misato was _not _looking forward to what would happen when that information got out.

The survivors of Second Impact, the kind of people who murdered their neighbors on the suspicion of SEELE sympathies: people were going to look at preschools, at yards full of children, and see scores of mini abominations. Just like Tabris.

People were going to _crack_, were going to get knives, guns, sticks and start _killing_.

When at least Armisael's were still spawn of the seed of knowledge. Were still the same sort of being as them. The old men of SEELE would have considered them just as godforsaken as the Lilim, without the so-called power or nobility of the white seed. Misato wanted to believe that if they hadn't found out, the children of Armisael would have been just like ordinary humans. That they _were _ordinary humans. That humanity wasn't _already _dying out.

But for them to be replaced by spawn of the seed of life? For humanity to be replaced by Tabris 'superior' kind, to be transformed into them? That was too close to what Misato's enemies had wanted.

"Perhaps I should let you keep him from me," Tabris went on, unaware of her thoughts. "It would help drive me to find a way to give them the instrumentality they long for. Harness the power of this love, this human selfishness. Yet I cannot risk my judgment being compromised. I cannot risk triggering Third Impact and discovering too late, if there is anything left of me to discover it that it brings only death to humanity, not complementation." The way what Keel told him was the true way would have.

Okay, now, this she could use.

Use Shinji as a hold they had on Tabris. Pitch it as seducing him away from the entire concept of instrumentality. After all, if the abomination was attached to an individual human's life, well now. The more attached he got to Shinji, the better leverage Shinji would be on him, too.

Her little brother had better appreciate this, she thought to herself.

He had _also _better be the one on top, because Misato was pretty darn protective of her little baby brother, and all joking about Adam and tentacles aside, Shinji taking advantage of the abomination was excellent. The abomination taking advantage of Shinji, though? After becoming Shinji's first friend like that, even if it probably wasn't calculated and Shinji seemed to be his only proper friend too?

She was going to have to think about this.

She was also going to have to figure out how to arrange a leak to the border guard forces. Probably-innocent people running to SEELE was one thing: they didn't want the enemy to have more population and thus more resources. But once people started going on child-murdering sprees, they were going to have parents running for the border.

The Limited Engagement Guidelines already had a certain degree of looking the other way coded into them by necessity, because SEELE and Tabris took exception to people not being able to reach Refuge and that kind of thing tended to result in entire guard facilities being knocked unconscious and waking up a hundred miles further from the border with their base and all their equipment smashed, which meant that segments of the border were temporarily unguarded and SEELE could get infiltrators _out_?

Parents with small children heading for the border, though? When the kind of fanatic that would kill kids would view that as the parents deciding to serve the abominations and betray humanity? The UN would need to protect those people. Especially if they wanted any hope of them being able to come back after this died down.

Realistically, though, once someone had gone to SEELE territory…

Some people were already making plans to empty out jails, make secure areas and put the children in them for their own protection, but that would make it worse on some levels. They'd be in one place, and it would support the idea that they were other, different, and make people wonder just who needed protection, the children from people or the people from those children? They'd have to let the parents stay with their children, and those places would become forts.

The same kind of polarization of communities that happened after the revelation of SEELE. And when mobs attacked those places? Tabris could get anywhere on earth in a matter of minutes: they'd used him to extract a lot of people who couldn't reach the border. Including a lot of people who hadn't wanted to join SEELE, but if the alternative to taking the abomination's hand was having their families murdered? Not that Tabris had usually forced them to agree, just taken them to safety.

She couldn't expect him not to rescue children, but an abomination coming to save the mini-abominations? And meanwhile…

Opening a beer, Misato knew she was very lucky that Tabris wasn't one to even consider letting this get out. Once it did, then the UN would be going through a lot more internal upheaval than SEELE was right now. They'd need to recall all their armed forces for peacekeeping: once the world found out why they weren't killing Armisael, why they couldn't kill the second-to-last abomination, a military assault on SEELE would be cutting their own throats just as badly as a nuclear assault on the last land to become infertile would be. What good would it do to get vengeance, especially when Tabris had already dealt with the old men of the committee for them, if they destroyed humanity's future in the process?

Their world. Their children.

The knowledge that every child born after the Rapture, the detonation of Adam was contaminated by fallout from the abomination and that was why they could pilot had already lowered the birthrate. This was going to make matters worse, the question was _how _worse.

If humanity was going to be replaced by something that wasn't human even if the planet _did _survive somehow, then shouldn't they be trying to make sure _humanity_, real humanity, survived?

Would people start to think that the Ikaris had the right idea?

Ah, for the days when she was just punching things with a giant robot. And the drunken threesomes. Couldn't forget the drunken threesomes, although Ritsuko always looked so panicked the next morning or when Misato even tried to allude to it that she'd been forced to decide between possibly losing Ritsuko or leaving her first & best friend forever to worry that Misato felt used or something.

Was it wrong that Misato had semi-supported Ritsuko sexting with the enemy for a few years now since at least after Ritsuko got out of the closet she finally could be honest with her friend?

Maybe that was why she'd gone so easy on Tabris, on Kaworu at the embassy. She'd just lost her husband and it was some percent his fault that Kaji was dead, but she could see that he really did care for Shinji and she'd _known _how badly the little angel wanted a friend.

Of course there was Shinji too, and breaking Tabris' heart would have required breaking Shinji's heart, not to mention Rei's, when she was worried that if they hated Tabris because he was an angel, then what about her?

So cute and vulnerable, like Shinji back when she'd used the little kid as a teddy bear.

Fighting Tabris all those years: she was probably the reigning world champion when it came to kicking puppies. The will to try to murder cute things was still there, but the flesh was lacking, or rather the sync ratio was lacking.

"Am I getting soft in my old age?" she wondered aloud.

She'd gone a long time without replying now, and Kaji or Shinji would probably have advised seeing how long it took him to send something else, if he did send something else, but, "You should ask Ritsuko about care and feeding of baby angels. She's got a pool full of them now."

"I do too," Tabris said, and it forced an incredulous laugh out of her to see him add a smiley. "My attendants are overjoyed: they only get to dress me and brush my hair for public appearances now. The little ones are very happy for all the attention, but I do want them to have homes, and families that will care for them as themselves instead as simply one of the cherubim." One of a mass of adorable baby angels – abominations, but SEELE, Refuge called them angels. "We have a system set up to find people to take in orphans," from the border wars, or when their parents were killed on suspicion of being sympathizers, "so I will look among those couples, instead of asking for volunteers to take in angels. Those who clamor that they are worthy rarely are."

"So you're definitely not going to keep them?" That, now, was an important question. The UN had the Reyvas and could in theory use Armisael to power up the beta-type Evas, but would Tabris be training up more abominations, ones made from flesh of Adam that was originally UN property?

"…I am tempted, but I must care for my people first, and I must see if I can stand it. The thought of giving children born of my soul away to others."

That was what he'd said before, about him possibly being humanity's source of souls after Armisael.

"At least I will be able to make sure these go to good homes, but… I fear for them. I know that I am hated, as a child of Adam. That many of the Lilim will hate the thought of their children's souls coming from another angel. Hopefully centuries of Armisael's children will give the world time to change, to overcome the hatred and painful memories of Second Impact, but I know enough of Lilim to know what would happen if I became a source of souls now. Was it selfish of me, Misato Katsuragi? To tell you that Armisael was your source of souls now, so that you did not destroy her, so that I was not yet needed to bear so that you Lilim could go on into the future? I do not think that I could control where those souls go: it would certainly not be possible to restrict them to my people, within our Refuge. Many of them would have been born in UN territory, and while some of you might have been grateful that the knowledge and culture of the Lilim, of this world's humanity could go on into the future, many of you would take your hatred of SEELE, of me, out on those newborn innocent souls. Yet now Armisael will suffer in my stead, and… Yes. It is truly selfish of me. I will have to overcome this, and do what I can to make it up to her.

"So I am now informing you, in your role as UN General Katsuragi of NERV, that I will be violating your territory as necessary to rescue Armisael's children once," once, not if, "they begin to be attacked by Lilim. I will set up a mechanism by which they can be reunited with their families without their families moving to Refuge, but only if it is safe for them to return to their homes. A home is a place that should grant happiness to Lilim, not somewhere a child should fear for their lives. I will have to create a great deal of new policies in addition to changing existing ones in the coming days. Good luck to you as well: I wish this both as Tabris speaking to Misato, and the ruler of Refuge speaking to a representative of the UN government. Goodbye and good luck."

* * *

"Hikari Horaki?"

"Yes," she said, showing her ID.

"This way." The woman who led her through the halls was dressed as a servant, but Hikari was certain she had a gun.

This was new: when Hikari came to the Fuyutsuki house with Asuka there were perimeter guards, but once she was checked out she was generally allowed in without a guard. Although every time she'd come before she'd been with Asuka, or Asuka had met her in the entryway instead of Hikari just wandering through the house.

So was this really increased security, or was this because she'd come on her own this time, been invited by Shinji instead of Asuka? Everyone knew that Shinji was much more guarded than Asuka, both by himself and by others, because of his… _other _family.

"The young master is through here," the maid said, indicating a door, then bowing slightly and leaving Hikari to open it herself.

When she knocked, she heard Shinji say, "Come in."

She found Shinji reading in a chair leaning against the wall, well away from the frosted glass of the windows, but what surprised her was, "Why are Touji and his sister here?" Hospital beds, heart monitors and everything.

"You and the rest of the beta-type pilots heard what Tabris said," Shinji told her, turning the page of his book. "You, Suzuhara and Aida are good people, but a lot of them have chips on their shoulders about proving they're just as human and more pro-humanity than everyone else because they were selected for a large amount of contamination from the fallout, remember?" Even beta-type pilots had to have been born after the Rapture, had to have traces of the power of the abominations in their veins. "And now, this? Finding out that instead of being 'less human' than everyone else, they're more human than the kids born after them? You officers were let out of debriefing early, and Ritsuko and Misato are going to try to put the fear of NERV into them before the others are released tomorrow, but trust me. Proving their loyalty to humanity, because they hate the abominations and don't want to be seen as abominations… for lots of reasons, several of them are going to talk. The Intelligence Division will try to keep a lid on it, but you can't keep something like this quiet. By the evening of the day after tomorrow there are going to be riots, and Touji and his sister were in the hospital used for NERV dependants and beta-type pilots, remember? People on drugs talk: the staff there already knows. I had the two of them brought here this morning, so I figured I should call you over here so you didn't panic when you found out that your boyfriend and his sister vanished."

Hikari started to automatically say, "He's not my-"

He looked up at her over his book, blue eyes only mostly serious. "Hikari. He was assigned to one of the Numbered Series Evas. You're not his commanding officer anymore."

"Well, he's still not my boyfriend," she said, still blushing. "We haven't really had a chance to talk since…" Since it became okay for it to be official.

"People on drugs talk," Shinji said again, returning his eyes to his book. "While she was in that hospital, she was a target of opportunity, especially since her brother has a high contamination level and she grew up in Tokyo-3, so hers is pretty high too. And obviously I couldn't take her without taking Touji, or he'd panic when he woke up."

Hikari didn't protest that, didn't say anything like 'who would try to kill an innocent little girl who wouldn't hurt anyone, even if she could when she's so badly injured?' Not when her own contamination level was… what it was. Not when she was legally required to be on birth control, and a lot of very outspoken people were lobbying for anyone over a certain level of contamination to be sterilized. Not when she'd been moved to Tokyo-3 as soon as she was tested, and none of her old friends would talk to her. She was just lucky her family had moved here to be with her. Three-quarters of the class wasn't so lucky, and she couldn't bear to ask how many of them had been disowned.

It ashamed her how so many of her classmates were relieved to meet Rei in order to have something to hate. In order to feel like compared to her they were perfectly human, perfectly normal: to resent her because all the hatred directed towards them should have been directed towards Rei instead, as thought that made any sense. As though they weren't hated _because _people hated abominations, even Rei, who was on their side. Who was humanity's little sister, in a sense, if not their mother's reincarnation. So people hating Rei more would just mean they hated the contaminated children more, for being like the thing they hated.

The way people hated Shinji for being the son of two of the people who set off the Rapture.

"Thank you," she told him, because Touji would definitely thank him when he woke up. "What about Aida?"

"I'm having him brought here when he's let out of debriefing too," which would be tomorrow, since he wasn't quite an officer and Misato was hoping that keeping at least some of the more level-headed people among the beta-type pilots would help keep them under control, as sad as the thought of Aida being comparatively level-headed was. "I asked Misato to let Asuka know, and you can stay in Asuka's rooms while you're here: Asuka and Rei will be on standby guarding Armisael while they figure out where they're going to keep her."

Asuka because it was her Eva that got Armisael under control, and of course Rei should stay in the geofront if there might be mobs, but, "What about you?"

"Between that bastard," his father, "succeeding in kidnapping me," Shinji made a face like he'd bitten into a lemon, which was weird to see on someone normally so controlled, "and how I was already basically considered compromised between Kaji and Tabris, I'm grounded from Eva piloting."

"I'm sorry."

He looked up again to stare at her. "I'd throw a party, if I had anyone to invite. I was considering putting party hats on these two, since I have a captive guest list." He waved off her concerned look. "My Eva's several miles underwater, too. Trust me, nothing makes me happier than the thought of never having to get back in that thing ever again. Don't worry, they're not going to lock me up and throw away the key when I'm already effectively under house arrest, and the security here is UN anyway."

True, he wasn't going to miss wandering around the city when he never did that willingly ever.

"I'm taking this opportunity to catch up on my reading," he told her. "You know you can ask the staff to get anything you want from your house, right? Since you came straight here from debriefing."

"Asuka let me know," although Hikari had never felt right about imposing like that. Still, she thought, she wanted to stay with Touji. Just in case.

She was suddenly aware of the weight of her sidearm. Normally that made her uncomfortable, but…

Shinji nodded and went back by his book while she went to sit by Touji's bedside.

The light that came in through those windows (clearly designed to make things harder on snipers) was tinted orange when she asked, "So, what do you think is going to happen now?"

Shinji looked up at the ceiling. "Riots, a lot of debate over killing Armisael – right now they're claiming that they're keeping her alive since as long as she is alive, SEELE and Tabris won't make their move, but some idiots are going to want to claim that she's probably the reason Lilim souls aren't being born, provided that _is _true, and try to kill her. More riots. Some people wanting to order the Evas up to the SEELE border, although removing NERV's defenses when Tabris might be lying when he says he's not going to attack yet is clearly enough of a damn stupid thing to do that cooler heads should prevail. The rioting types getting organized and making assaults on where kids are being kept 'for their own protection,' and they're likely to be helped by people on the inside. Tabris flying off with entire buildings in order to save those kids, like in the early days when they'd have him steal them some infrastructure – knowing that they needed Evas of their own makes a lot of things make a lot more sense - and people trying to take advantage of this to launch stolen or 'stolen' missiles at SEELE territory while he's busy."

"What do you think will happen in SEELE territory?" she asked, looking down at her hands.

"Well, technically Tabris just pulled a coup d'etat, but since he was _in theory _already their god-prince, the one who was going to lead them to instrumentality, he technically has a right to the power he's just taken – from what I'm hearing, a lot of people on their end are referring it to as the old men usurping 'his' power and deceiving him in order to use him for their own ends, which is sort of true but forgets the fact that it was the old men who built that country in the first place, so it was their power to start with. All the propaganda work they did to put a pretty face on things is backfiring on them now, or any of them that are left, anyway. A lot of people there still hated Second Impact even if they wanted instrumentality, and complementation meant they'd be reunited with the loved ones they lost in Second Impact. So they felt that the old men 'owed' them protection and instrumentality and everything, while Tabris was the symbol of their hopes. So they like him more.

"So it's something like the Meiji Restoration: putting a religious ruler in power in order to give legitimacy to what will hopefully be a more democratic government than the one it's replacing, instead of a military coup. If it were a military coup, though," Shinji said thoughtfully, "Tabris would be set. The old men were mostly focused on instrumentality, so they devoted most of their attention to building their Evas. They _wanted _other people to run the economy and defense for them so they didn't have to waste their time actually looking after people. That's how Gendo Ikari managed to get so much of a power base over there: he made himself irreplaceable and took over their research program.

"Tabris, on the other hand, actually cares about protecting people. Since their entire defense program hinged around him, he's really the most important person to their military and counterintelligence… and intelligence, too, because of how he can hack. Because of that, they're used to taking orders from him, organizing things around what he can, can't and won't do. While the old men probably just meant for him to have power 'in theory,' there are years of precedent for their military taking orders from him, even though he's outside the military chain of command. The way a country's rulers normally are outside the military chain of command. Except for a few security forces under the thumb of the old men that were already pretty ostracized by the wider forces, their military is personally loyal to Tabris."

"How do you know all that?" she asked him.

"We've known this for years," he told her, looking surprised. "Come on, don't think that the UN government hasn't tried to incite military coups over there. Even if they couldn't kill Tabris without an Eva, we've wanted Keel's head on a platter for a decade. They've been _working _on trying to get some of the people already in there who do hate SEELE to kill them off for us. The biggest problem was that they were the experts on instrumentality, and no one there wanted to jeopardize that. After finding out they were lying about that? _No one _in SEELE territory is going to openly support what's left of the old guard against Tabris, or _they'll _have to worry about getting lynched. The public is on his side and the military has been taking orders from him for years. Anyone going around saying, 'we should attack while they're divided!' is an idiot. SEELE used to be a _secret _society. A _cult._ _Small._ The membership exploded after the revelation, but they did that by not trying to get the new people to swallow what the core of SEELE _really _was trying to do. Tabris absorbed the memories of the key members, so he'll _know_ who might possibly make trouble and deal with them. I know some people in the UN government are stupid enough to suggest we lend our support to what's left of SEELE in the hope of making them fight each other and bringing down Refuge, but that's not going to happen.

"They have no public support. They're hopelessly marginalized in the country and religion they created," Shinji said. His eyebrows were raised as though he was honestly surprised she didn't know this. "This has been their biggest advantage this whole time, that we had to plan for the long term and they didn't. They made us have to plan to fight the abominations. We had to worry about the fact they were squatting on the last land on earth to be destroyed by LCL. To them, that didn't matter, because it was going to cease to matter very soon.

"What did they care if they were lying to everyone and if people ever found out they'd be pissed? Even after what happened when my Dad revealed the truth behind the Rapture, even after they got exposed last time, they did the same thing again, because they only had a decade to go until it would no longer matter. So they could do whatever would get them what they wanted, and long-term consequences? They were going to be _gods_. So what did they care? Think about how they made themselves part of the UN government, used their money and power to have influence over what they wanted, and didn't give a damn about everything else? Including public opinion! The world turned on them _instantly _once it knew they existed. They treated Refuge's government just like the UN government. It was a tool to get them what they wanted, in this case a population and infrastructure to build Evas, and make the materials, and feed the workers… Yeah, it's easy to demonize the people there, because who would work for SEELE, who would believe them, but that's the thing. They didn't believe what SEELE believed. The old men didn't make any attempt to indoctrinate people into the central group. Tabris liked people, and cared about what they wanted, and made a cute figurehead, so they had him do that. They _handed _him that power, because they never cared about the people or public opinion."

Shinji scowled. "We… Well, the Intel people, we all _knew _that this would bite them in the ass someday, the trouble was keeping the world from ending before that day came. You can fool most of the people most of the time…" he trailed off, looking disgruntled at the memory.

"You know a lot about this, don't you?" Hikari was surprised. She'd never really heard him talk more than a sentence at a time in class, or even during training.

He shrugged, a little embarrassed. "Once Rei came, I think Misato, Kaji and Ritsuko saw Asuka, me and Rei as the next generation of them. I was already learning self-defense and how to keep an eye on things, and, well… Yeah. Kaji was my older brother-in-law. That's not helping people think that I wasn't compromised from the beginning: a lot of people think he was passing messages between me and that bastard – I mean my father." Specifically, since 'bastards' was often used to encompass all of SEELE's side. "Anyway, they were relying on Tabris and his power. Not just as a symbol, or a nuclear deterrent, but he can read emotions. If it weren't for him, UN Intel, the CIA… I mean, SEELE made enemies of the entire world. It's just that no one thinks about the espionage side of things unless we fail to spot something, and then we get in trouble for not being perfect. But the CIA especially had a lot of experience creating and overthrowing puppet governments, and SEELE's organization, once it included more people than the original cultists, _should _have been an easy target." He shook his head. "…What?"

She blushed, looking back down at her hands. "It's nothing. What are you reading?" she asked, in order to change the subject.

"History," he told her, but didn't elaborate, blushing a little and looking back at his book as though he'd finally realized that he'd used up his quota of words for, well, the month? She felt glad more than anything, but it was still clear that he hadn't opened up to _her_, he'd only talked because it was about his interest. Of course, he would have been more guarded if someone tried to talk politics while they were at school, since it would be far too easy for someone to take offense to _anything _said by the son of the Ikaris. Especially something that painted SEELE as something other than a unified, evil empire.

Yes, most people assumed Tabris had power there, but that was because he was an abomination, so it was more like 'controlling people' than 'legal authority.' The idea that he hadn't known what the people who caused Second Impact were really up to, and hadn't liked it… Hikari found herself thinking that an abomination wouldn't care about what happened to a human, even one as famous as Kaji, and scolded herself. She knew Rei. And Rei's crush on Kensuke, that amounted to nothing more than glancing at him with shy red-orange eyes.

Remembering that made her wish she could ask about Tabris, about Kaworu, after hearing Asuka rant about him (jealously, even though Asuka would deny it) even before they found out he was Tabris, since Shinji seemed so much more open here, in his home, without Asuka around, but no. Even if she'd heard him say they were friends, Shinji sounding so _different _from how he did in class, no. Even, especially if the Eva had thought it was really more like a mutual love confession. That was…

That news would be out soon too, she realized. And the kind of people who would spread gossip like that: they'd say it definitely was a love confession. People would assume that Shinji definitely was a traitor because of it, and…

Touji's little sister wasn't the person in the most danger here, the one most likely to end up a victim of someone's hate. Not even close.

Shinji didn't seem nervous or anything, but she was sure he'd figured it out if she had.

Wasn't he used to it, though? Used to people trying to kill and kidnap him, even though usually it was because of two people Hikari knew definitely hadn't loved him?

That was rather sad.

* * *

"Have you given any thought to the future?" Kaworu asked after they were finished playing, when the sun had set and it was time, was probably past time for him to go.

Shinji hadn't given it thought, he'd made up his mind, but he didn't want to be honest.

He didn't want to be like his parents, and it wasn't as though 'getting people to fall in love with you for fun and godhood' had succeeded for them in the end – Fuyutsuki had turned on Yui, and Naoko on Gendo. It wasn't that Shinji wanted Kaworu for the power: he was sick of notoriety, and being the abomination's gay lover was, well, going to kill any chance he'd ever had or deluded himself into thinking he had that he could just sink into comfortable obscurity.

Sinking into comfortable obscurity with Kaworu used to be his life goal, he realized.

"I want to keep playing music with you," he finally said, in lieu of saying anything about marrying a reigning god-emperor and actually having a hand in shaping the future of the world, as opposed using a giant robot's hand to smash things that threatened the future of the world.

Kaworu was like Dad, Misato, Kaji: one of the things Shinji actually wanted to protect.

The thing was, he thought as he took Kaworu's hand, that once he actually committed to it, or even said it aloud? He'd be a defector. He couldn't come home again, not until things settled down. Not for years. The thing was that now must be when Kaworu would need him most, wasn't it? The trouble was that Shinji was fourteen, and aside from piloting, aside from what he'd learned from watching the world and what Kaji taught him, he wasn't prepared for this at all.

Not to mention that he was fourteen. Misato had decided on Kaji when she was barely any older, but it might even be a bad sign that Shinji was so sure that Kaworu was 'the one.' There was a difference between 'the one' and 'the _only _one,' too. Just because Kaworu was the only person Shinji had ever succeeded in befriending didn't mean that Shinji could make him happy or keep him sane.

The idea that Kaworu had made him feel this way because Shinji was in the prophecies wasn't even worth considering, not when this was Kaworu, red eyes or not. Not when he was so amazed and grateful for this friendship, and it wouldn't be a gift if it was something he'd made Shinji give him.

He wouldn't have asked that question so hesitantly, glancing at Shinji with red eyes tinted with orange like the setting sun, if what Shinji did with his future was something he had any power over. Only hope.

Nor was it really the power of being Prince Consort that Shinji wanted. It was just that if he wanted Kaworu to stay Kaworu, he was going to have to look after him, and looking after Kaworu meant looking after the things Kaworu cared about.

Shinji knew he must not suggest that they run away together, even though that kind of responsibility was almost scarier than Eva piloting. Too many people would be killed if they did that, even if he was sure that Kaworu could succeed in hiding them, even from Maya, Ritsuko… all the people on both sides that would be trying to find them, as the world died around them.

This was the way to protect his precious people. This was the way to _keep _his precious person.

Why was he hesitating? No, he knew why. He didn't want to leave his home, even to go to a place that would surely become home, when there was someone there who cared for him so much it made him want to touch the junction of Kaworu's neck and shoulder, because that and his head were the only places he was showing any skin, as though he was still so afraid that Shinji would reject him because of his true appearance.

To leave his hand there, not caressing or anything, but just proving to Kaworu that Shinji wasn't afraid to touch him, wasn't afraid of any of the things the abomination could do to humans.

That was when he remembered one of the things Tabris could do, and said, "You can read my feelings, if you want," not needing to ask to know that Kaworu had never done that before. Even the people he scanned for immigration had given tacit permission, by asking to be let in to Refuge, knowing they'd be checked over, knowing that they were placing themselves into an abomination's power.

While for Shinji, Tabris had always been Kaworu, always played the role of another Lilim with only a Lilim's powers. Was that why he seemed hesitant to take Shinji up on the offer, or was he just afraid that he'd find fear under Shinji's bravado?

Bravado? Shinji wondered. Why had he come up with that word? He'd never had any bravado, that was Asuka, and Kaworu should know that. So he ran his fingers up the side of Kaworu's neck to his chin, trying not to remember any of Kaji's seduction advice but rather to make Kaworu look him in the eye, as Shinji shrugged to show him that it wasn't a big deal and Kaworu should just get on with it.

"It's not the same as reading your thoughts, Shinji," Kaworu told him, but he tilted his cheek into Shinji's hand, and said, "It isn't telling me anything I don't already know, but it is… nice. To feel your acceptance. Your care. That you aren't afraid. A little frustrated, but not angry with me."

"What would I be angry with you about?"

"Deceiving you," Kaworu said, raising a pale eyebrow. "Failing to protect Kaji."

"If you hadn't, we wouldn't have met." Shinji wouldn't have had his music partner. "And Kaji…" Shinji shrugged. "He was asking for it and he knew it. I'm angry at _him_. It wasn't like you wouldn't have protected him, if you knew he was in that much danger, and it's not like… He wanted to die instead of come home and facing Misato. He ran away," and that disgusted Shinji, as familiar as he was with the emotion. "So why would I be angry with you."

"I'm the one who took him away from your home," Kaworu said, lowering his eyes.

"He's the one who took you away," Shinji corrected Kaworu, only then realizing that he was angry with Kaji for that. "Before you could explain, or, or anything." Not that staying would have let things work out, it wasn't that simple, but Shinji was fairly sure, in retrospect, that under the shock of it all had been an element of 'what the hell are you doing, running off with my violinist!' It wasn't like Kaji hadn't done some insane things for training exercises.

It was the same sort of brain refusing to process this thing that kept Shinji from realizing that the cosplayer was his father until he was nicely crushed. It had taken _work _to forget his parent's faces, since they were up there with Keel and Tabris as 'faces of evil.' That probably was part of why he'd thought Gendo was a cosplayer: he was the source of that 'evil minion of SEELE' stereotype.

"I can't tell if you love me," Kaworu said, not suddenly, but it felt like suddenly. It left Shinji scrambling, wondering when the L word had come into this conversation.

Well, usually if you were thinking about _marrying _someone, the L word was involved, but Kaworu was his Kaworu.

When Shinji didn't immediately reply, other with than the feeling of being somewhat boggled, he supposed, Kaworu sighed and said, "I don't know if I love you either… Well, yes, I do care for you, and love you according to some definitions of love, but that one... I've heard countless songs of it, and yet even though we were prophesized to meet, when I met you I just felt hope that we might be friends."

Shinji couldn't chime in with anything, since Kaworu had been introduced to him as just one of the maestro's students. He'd just stuck around longer than the others. Fit better.

As for whether he found Kaworu physically attractive, it wasn't like he'd actually seen much of that body, but… Yes. His hands, Shinji suddenly realized, or rather let himself realize. Even or especially because he always wore those white gloves.

"Eros, at least," Kaworu murmured, and that was when Shinji remembered that right, Kaworu was sort of tapped into his nervous or possibly his endocrine system right now. "The idea of being closer to you does appeal to me, especially the thought of our bodies becoming one… Even if not in complementation. I think love and sex are the closest Lilim can come to instrumentation and complementation, to godhood and oneness. Through love, you grow closer, forgetting the pain of loneliness: through sex, you create life, bringing forth the future."

Shinji didn't say that Third Impact did not make for very good pillow talk. He was used to Kaworu going off on philosophical tangents about things while Shinji just listened and employed expressions and monosyllables, even if normally he'd stayed away from that topic.

"I've looked forward to being united with you for a long time," Kaworu said, with that 'would be blushing if his blood was the right color,' expression.

The part of Shinji that was Kaji's little brother voted that he point out that his bedroom was just down the hall, and if tentacles were really such a horrible thing then why were they in so much porn?

Instead he said, "I want to spend the rest of my life with you. I don't know if this is love, or if I'll suddenly fall in that kind of love with someone at some point," songs said it could happen at any moment, no matter how closely guarded Shinji normally kept his heart and emotions, "but that won't change. And if they won't let me be with you, then I won't be with them, no matter how much I love them," Shinji could promise. "You are not negotiable."

Kaworu smiled so brilliantly. Good, thought Shinji. So that was settled.

Still, he thought he should probably explain that, "I don't trust love. Parents are supposed to instinctively love their children, and love at first sight is the same sort of evolved chemical reaction, when you get down to it. I'd rather have something that's real, something that you can rely on." Biology, biology could be ignored: his parents certainly hadn't given a damn about abandoning him.

Whereas Professor Fuyutsuki had seen him crying _that day_, when his mother decided to get herself eaten, and seen how Gendo really could not care less, and had bent down to take him by the hand for no particular reason, just that Shinji was miserable and needed someone to take care of him and Dad was someone who cared.

People could claim they loved someone and then make them miserable because of that love, too, so Shinji would "I'd rather have someone who cares. And you do, Kaworu." Cared enough to arrange all their performances, cared enough for an entire country. For the world. "Hmm?" Because Kaworu was looking at him with an expression he didn't recognize, and Shinji paid close attention to expressions, especially Kaworu's.

"I think," Kaworu said thoughtfully, "that I would like to kiss you. Is that alright? It won't remind you of your loneliness too much, when I have to go back?" To his home, while Shinji stayed here?

"I'll go there with you eventually," Shinji said, taking a step closer to Kaworu. "To stay. So you have someone to look after you, while you look after everyone else. If you want me to, I mean. I know you have a staff and everything. But no, I won't regret kissing you."

"And I want to have you with me, but I won't steal you away from a home that has led you to happiness," Kaworu said, looking slightly down at him with red eyes that looked regretful, almost guilty, as though it was selfish and bad of him to want to Shinji to be with him, so at that point there was really nothing for it but to take another step forward, and another, until Kaworu was against the wall so he couldn't run away that easily. Nothing for it but to press against him and kiss him, with the hope that the force of it might push some of that out of Kaworu's head.

It wasn't that Kaworu was stealing Shinji, it was that Shinji refused to let him get away again.

He knew he should stay home for now, he knew he should start getting involved in Refuge's politics when Kaworu was trying to restore normalcy and calm public unrest as it sank in that instrumentality really might not happen, so what were they going to do now, but, he thought, tightly gripping the back of Kaworu's jacket, that couldn't take too long.

He wouldn't wait too long.


	19. Truth, Beauty, Cruelty

_I am weak. Weak, I tell you! I shouldn't be writing more in this verse when I finished the fic and I have fics I need to finish. I don't even know if it's any good. Dratted muses! But here it is anyway. Some actual fluff for the alleged day of the alleged messiah's birth. It seems appropriate._

* * *

The first step seemed to be grasping those white gloves by the fingertips and pulling gently to slide them off his hands. First one, then the other.

Technically the first thing that Kaworu took off was his jacket, but that was nothing new. In the heat of the Eternal Summer he'd often taken it off, hanging it on the back of his chair or handing it to the coat-check person when they performed. In fact, Shinji was generally less willing to take his jacket off than Kaworu was, since wearing one meant it was far less obvious that he was always armed, even and especially when he was performing for an audience of unknowns. Hell, he hadn't left the house without a gun since he was old enough they'd give him a license for one, and before that it was a tazer.

Kaworu had hung up his jacket when they came in here, on a coat-tree with a few more dresses and robes, all of them more elaborate than the jacket he'd worn to greet Shinji. The one that was like something a student might wear.

Now he was standing by the table where he'd put Rei's make-up on, and those gloves were sliding off his hands.

Shinji hadn't wanted to interrupt, not when Kaworu – Tabris, he should get used to calling him Tabris since that was his _name _– was so nervous, but he had to take those hands when Tabris put the gloves down on the table.

This was the first time he'd seen Kaworu's hands without those gloves.

His skin wasn't quite white, more of a pale, pearly gray, but turning those hands over in his, looking at his short-trimmed fingernails, they seemed greyer than the skin of Kaworu's face. Was that because Shinji knew Tabris was still wearing some makeup, or… Of course. It was because he was used to these hands being white.

Red eyes were looking at him now, those lips slightly parted, clearly wishing he could ask if Shinji was upset, if he wanted Kaworu to stop, but too afraid of the answer.

_Kiss them! Girls love it when you kiss their hands_, and even though Tabris wasn't a girl, Shinji had never been so grateful to have an inner Kaji. So he raised Kaworu's right hand to his lips, kissed the back of it, and from that sharp intake of breath he'd done the right thing, although he was left to wonder about that a second later when Kaworu drew his hand away and turned quickly to the makeup table, opening a bottle and pouring it into a basin with movements that were quick, almost to the point of being jerky.

It was hard to be worried that he'd upset Kaworu when Kaworu was so obviously flustered as he lowered his hands into that liquid and then rubbed them over his face, washing off the makeup Misato had accused him of wearing even now that he was being honest with Shinji.

Even looking in the mirror Shinji couldn't really get a clear look at his face until he rubbed it dry with a towel and turned to look at Shinji.

There really wasn't much difference that Shinji could see: Kaworu's face was still pale, still tinted gray instead of peach, but when Shinji just looked at him because he really didn't know what Kaworu had made a fuss like that about Kaworu's face did start to color a little.

Not reddish or pink, but orange: very definitely something of an orange, like LCL, with those red eyes right there to contrast it. "I think Rei will be jealous," was what Shinji said. "She doesn't blush at all."

"Normally I don't, but…" Shinji had kissed his hand, and Kaworu was so nervous. "It looks ridiculous, doesn't it?" That just made him blush harder.

"It's _fine_," Shinji said, deciding after a second to go ahead and roll his eyes. "I mean… You know what some of us think about you, and I've seen all the other abominations. Lilith has legs and stuff sticking out of her all over, and then there was the blue cube, and… Kaworu, I really don't care," he confessed, even though he didn't want Kaworu to think that Shinji wasn't taking him seriously or something. Even if this was very, very silly. "At this point, I don't care if you have tentacles, so it's not going to freak me out that you blush orange."

Kaworu laughed a little. "I know, it's… I have let you so close to my heart. The closer one Lilim lets another, the more they can be hurt. It's wrong of me to be afraid of you like this. I don't want you to think that I don't trust you, I'm just so afraid of something going wrong." Of losing Shinji.

"Kaworu…" Shinji put his head in one of his hands. "_Tentacles_. Anything less than that is not really going to register. Well, maybe as a little weird, or interesting, but I'm not exactly familiar with… Well, okay, I have seen naked people, but not in real life, and the people in porn aren't exactly average Lilim either. And your coloring is more realistic than anime girls anyway," he said rolling his eyes and thinking about conversations his classmates hadn't thought he was overhearing because Shinji'd worn headphones. What could he say, he was trained to be paranoid and automatic eavesdropping was part of it. "Tons of people are into them. If you had people who dressed you, and they weren't freaked out, then I'm going to be fine, okay?" He took Kaworu's hands again, waiting for Kaworu to look at him.

That smile was so grateful, so warm, so meltingly full of something that almost had to be love that it, not any of the signs that Tabris was an abomination, was what bothered Shinji, but he was pretty sure he managed to hide it. Because of Kaworu was infatuated with him, if it was just a crush or love, then he could fall _out _of love with Shinji.

Misato's idea of a pep talk was 'take advantage of him while he's well, not drunk, but irrational!' but Shinji didn't _want _this to be something irrational, something Kaworu would think better of when he was in his right mind.

Inner Kaji, he thought to himself, was so much better than taking Misato's advice.

Also he didn't want to be thinking of his big sister when he'd… well, there wasn't any other way to put it. He'd talked Tabris into stripping for him.

Not that he'd really realized that was what he was doing when he'd pointed out to Tabris that he had never seen any of his skin beneath the collarbone, not even his hands or arms, and was that really okay? Was it a sign that he was still afraid that Shinji would reject him for the abomination thing? Because Shinji didn't want him to feel that way.

It wasn't until Kaworu had finally nodded, and agreed that Shinji was right, and was it alright if they did this at Kaworu's quarters back at the embassy that inner Kaji had shown up with beer, champagne and the announcement that his boy was about to become a man.

At this point the sex thing was almost a foregone conclusion, unless Shinji screwed up in another way, because that was certainly the best way to show that Tabris didn't repulse Shinji at all and, well, they were teenagers and their love was probably prophesized, given Tabris' reaction to Shinji asking about the details (he was fine with talking about Shinji possibly killing him, or rather sacrificing him upon the altar of instrumentality and Lilim survival or something like that, so what else could have made him hesitant like that?) and it wasn't like they hadn't know each other for years and they were teenagers.

And Kaji had threatened to drag Shinji to some very nice ladies he knew if Shinji didn't get over his fear of intimacy and other people and take the plunge by his fifteenth birthday, and Shinji really wouldn't put it past him to come back from the dead just to throw Shinji in at the deep end by pickpocketing his gun and locking Shinji in a room with some people who were very happy about him saving the world and insistent about showing their gratitude. And their boobs. Shinji knew what Misato's fans were like, but he managed not to shudder at the thought just so that Kaworu didn't misinterpret it.

Well, he should probably call him Tabris in public once he moved to Refuge, but there wasn't anything wrong with calling him Kaworu when they were alone, was there? It could be a pet name, and it might worry Kaworu if Shinji started calling him Tabris all the time, since it was Kaworu who had been his friend for years, while he'd grown up fearing the inevitable battle with Tabris.

Afraid that his new big sister might not come home, that the abomination might hurt her.

Losing people. He really didn't like it. Understatement. He'd do anything to avoid it, which was why he was still kind of angry at Kaji.

Not least because dying like that made it so that the only way Shinji and Misato could get him back was if instrumentality happened and it _worked_. If Shinji didn't know Kaji so well, if he hadn't been taught this stuff by Kaji then he might have given him the benefit of the doubt, might have thought that no, even if dying had been part of Kaji's plan _that _might not have been why, but no. He was pretty certain about this.

Instrumentality meant immortality, and Kaji giving up on saving Misato (and Shinji too) really wasn't happening. He'd probably jumped at the idea of doing it from beyond the grave, or setting it up so that even death couldn't stop his plans. Even if it was because he'd already died.

Making Kaworu feel guilty for not protecting Kaji was pretty damn manipulative too.

Oh, right. He removed his hand from Kaworu's and reached for the buttons of his shirt. "I should, too. So it's fair." It wasn't like Shinji had anything to be self-conscious about: he was in pretty good shape. The manipulative part was that he also had scars, and hopefully Kaworu would see them and be too busy worrying about Shinji to worry about what Shinji thought about how Kaworu looked.

Besides, well, pretty.

Shinji knew that he himself looked a hell of a lot like his mother, although eventually Dad had realized that Shinji didn't want to hear it and stopped reminiscing. Then there was Rei, who looked like him with ab-angelic coloring, which didn't help. Their faces had the same shape.

Looking kind of feminine probably hadn't helped his PR: this was Japan, anyone who had ever played an RPG knew about prettyboys, especially long-haired ones. That was the main reason Shinji had never grown his hair out, even though both Misato and Kaji agreed that it would look damn cool.

Actually, come to think of it, Kaji and his ponytail _had _turned out to be secretly evil…

_White-haired _prettyboys, now, well, Tabris was probably half the source of the character type, even though Shinji was pretty sure it predated him. Still, with all the Misato clones running around…

"May I?" Kaworu asked, putting his hand on top of Shinji's, and Shinji had to swallow.

"Only if you're not just using it as an excuse," he told his friend, because it definitely wasn't that he minded the idea, but he wanted to get this over with. "I know I said that it proved you were human that you were nervous, or something like that, but that was just because it proved that… that I mattered to you," he said, reaching up to touch Kaworu's gray hair. "I don't like that you're worried and nervous because of me. The sooner I can show you that you don't have to worry about it, the better I'll feel."

Kaworu nodded, a hint of determination in his eyes. Good, so he understood what Shinji was getting at and wasn't going to hesitate any longer.

Swallowing, Shinji watched fingers nimble from years of practice with the piano and violin undo buttons, watched him slide that white silk shirt off his shoulders, and finally pull his undershirt (a sort of creamy orange) up over his head.

Maybe he should have objected that Kaworu took a step forward to start undoing Shinji's buttons so quickly after that, since it probably was only half eagerness, the other half that he didn't want Shinji to take too long a look, but it was hard to object. Hard to remember that this was about Kaworu… Well, it was still about Kaworu. It was about the fact that Kaworu's shirt was off, he was taking off Shinji's shirt, and their pants were next.

He knew that Kaworu's skin wasn't cold, wasn't dead or fishlike or slimy at all: no, he was warm when Shinji had touched him. Hot, even, and Shinji could feel his own heartbeat speeding up. Seeing Kaworu determined like this instead of scared, even if it wasn't quite scared of Shinji: he wanted to kiss those pale lips now, but wouldn't that get in the way of…

Once his shirt was off, he thought that he should give Kaworu a hand, right?

So he did pull Kaworu to his chest and kiss him, a hand reaching between them for the buckle of Kaworu's belt.

* * *

Shinji was pretty, although he looked much more manly with his shirt off, if he did say so himself. Learning hand-to-hand paid off, and running was a valuable life skill if you liked having a life.

Kaworu, now, he thought as Kaworu stepped into the bath that someone had drawn in the bathroom while they were in the bedroom, Kaworu was beautiful.

No one knew who had supplied the human half of Tabris' genes (although Ritsuko had mentioned that if Shinji just happened to get his hands on a genetic sample of SEELE's creation…), but they definitely wouldn't have chosen anyone ugly or genetically defective, even if they hadn't originally intended to use Tabris as _this _much of a showpiece.

No, they would have kept him to themselves, only let the faithful be graced with his presence, until he was sent to meet Shinji.

Except they wouldn't have met over music. No, Kaworu would have come as Tabris and Shinji would have killed him in accordance with the prophecies and it made something clench up inside his chest as Kaworu's feet disappeared past the rim of the marble tub, as he shrugged the stormcloud-embroidered silk robe he'd thrown on to walk even the, what, ten meters between where it hung and the tub down off those shoulders and Shinji realized that watching clothing slide along Kaworu's perfect skin… Well, no, it wasn't really a fetish, was it? Come on, who didn't like the idea of watching sexy people take clothes off? Or sexy people sliding against the sheets?

The gloves, the gloves might be a fetish. Not that he'd dared ask Kaworu to put them on again, just in case he got worried that Shinji didn't like the look of his hands or something. They were perfectly nice hands, they'd probably been manicured or whatever, but the thought of Kaworu handling him like he handled his bow, watching Kaworu's fingers on his skin like the keys of a piano…

"Won't you join me?" Kaworu asked, half-turning as paused on the last of the steps leading down into the tub. "I'll lower the temperature if it's too hot for you."

Seeing Kaworu in profile like this? He still felt bad about last night, how he hadn't managed to… At least he knew it was probably something to do with how Kaworu was made. It certainly wasn't because he hadn't tried hard enough.

Shinji had already decided that he'd go through hellfire and damnation to be by Kaworu's side. Hot water was just an incentive.

Especially once Kaworu lay back in that water and sighed so softly and contentedly, all possible tension leaving that body. The pilot found himself wondering if this was how Rei looked in the water, but since Rei was his niece and Kaworu's little sister he didn't want to go there, didn't want to think that maybe he'd been missing out by avoiding Ritsuko's suggestion that he go swim with her in the pool at NERV after Eva practice.

His friend draping himself along the marble bench like that: alright, that was a little unnatural. Normal people had to breathe, but Kaworu had his head pillowed on his hands now, looking up at Shinji as though he wasn't under a half-meter of water. Oh, so that was what 'bedroom eyes' looked like: Kaworu looked languid, like he could fall asleep right here, utterly naked except for water and steam.

Sitting down next to him made Kaworu move to put his head in Shinji's lap without Shinji having to prompt him, and he watched that hair wave a little in the water as his fingers combed through it. He'd known that Tabris wasn't easy to assassinate, but if anyone asked why he wasn't doing his duty as a pilot and killing the abomination, he could tell them that holding Tabris' head under water hadn't worked.

Yeah, he thought to himself, he still was Kaji's student, wasn't he.

Leaning back against the wall of the tub himself he closed his eyes and tried not to think things like that, just appreciating the way the water was just short of scalding – this would be _great _for sore muscles after a workout, like….. _Oooooh_, was that why someone had drawn this? Shinji found himself blushing again. Shouldn't Kaworu be fine, with his healing factor?

Of course, the entire world was probably going to assume that Tabris topped. The fact he was taller wouldn't help. Shinji hadn't needed to look at the news or online commentary to find that he was being referred to as the abomination's whore. According to Hyuga a lot of sites and message boards were getting crashed, although probably more because the kind of site where the moderators let people use that kind of hate-filled language was probably the kind of site where people were saying inflammatory things about the Children of Armisael.

Hyuga had actually needed to ask Shinji to pass Tabris a note asking him to please not destroy those places, it would just drive people into communicating through means that were harder for the UN to track and find them before they killed kids, although just the lone nuts were still doing enough dama-

Shinji tugged on Kaworu's hair.

Kaworu rose from the water, perching on Shinji's knees and tilted his head to look at him. "You aren't ignoring kids in danger just to stay here with me, are you?" Shinji demanded. Kids who were hated just because of who had given them life?

Kids like Shinji, like Kaworu himself?

"I couldn't," Kaworu confessed, as though this was a _bad _thing. "Last night I had to ask some of the Cherubim to help. I'm just glad that they aren't aware enough of the nature of Lilim yet to understand what it is that they are seeing. That I'm sending them to intervene in."

One kind of baby abomination rescuing kids that the crazies saw as just another kind of baby abomination? But even Tabris could only be in so many places at once, although, "Hyuga thought you'd finally managed multiple bodies." Like one of the abominations that attacked NERV. "Although they're still not sure: you've made it hard to get accurate times." To verify that he really was in two places at once, when he could move that fast.

Kaworu shook his head. "I am too anchored to the Lilim form I was created in, or reborn into… Even though the old men originally planned to capture this soul in other bodies, with other brains they would not have been _me_."

"Well, don't tell anyone else that," Shinji warned him. "If you can be in multiple places at once, with your AT field… well, you definitely know how many plans for attacking Refuge have always been based on luring you out of position." Tabris was the one who had been doing that for years, after all. He didn't need Shinji to tell him that. "I should have realized that of course… They're probably doing more of it now, if they know that we're together. Hoping that they can get away with it." Or just to ruin things for Tabris. "When you came over to play it was possible it didn't get out, but," Shinji going to the embassy? Staying there overnight? The odds gossip like that hadn't leaked were pretty close to nil, given the political climate now.

"I already knew of the depths of Lilim hatred, especially that born of grief, and what it can drive them to do." Kaworu gave him a soft smile. "It doesn't detract from you, or how precious my time with you is, Shinji."

"Still, that's probably why they still haven't bugged me about coming home. If I say that I was watching you except when I was sleeping, that's hours when they can confirm your presence somewhere," Shinji knew, and sighed. "Sorry, I'm stating the obvious again. I don't like that I'm being even sort of used against you, but…" that was what people did, except to _real _family, and it was Shinji that was Misato's real family, not Tabris. So of course Misato would do things to make Shinji look good at Tabris' expense: she was on his side.

So few people were on Shinji's side that it was weird for him to wish that Misato and Hyuga would be a little less loyal, even if it was really just a matter of not prejudiced against him in Hyuga's case. "So you haven't given them away to good homes yet?" he asked, as though the Cherubim were kittens or something.

"Not yet," Tabris confessed. "Although at least this is on the behalf of Armisael's children instead of because of my own selfishness: It's been hard to find time to interview the foster families I've been looking at without putting too much pressure on them."

Yeah: finding places where they would be wanted was important. Shinji remembered seeing the little things Kaworu was turning the new Evas into: they hadn't really understood that they were created to fight, even if it was really to help Shinji, Asuka and the others against the Reyvas instead of to hurt people. They were like Kaworu, and _little_, and happy, and the thought of them realizing that people _hated _them and wanted them to die… "Are you really okay with it?" Shinji asked, then explained, "That some people hate you."

"Shinji," Kaworu said, and now he was the one who touched Shinji's face to get his friend to meet his eyes. "It's the nature of Lilim to hate and fear others. Especially that which is different, that which can kill them. That which _has _killed so many of them: the world was devastated at the moment of my birth. Their hatred of me springs from how much they care for their own lives and those of their loved ones. Even the Cherubim are different, and possess more than enough power to kill such fragile, precious beings. It would be wrong of me to blame the Lilim for an inevitability that springs from their nature and from their desire to care for others, to forget their loneliness. To take it personally, as though I have the right to decree their emotions. To demand they ignore their pain because it is unfair to me."

"No," Shinji told him, frowning. "You're not okay with it." That was obvious.

Kaworu looked startled. "What? I don't… It would be wrong of me not to forgive the Lilim for something they can't help."

"No," said Shinji. "They _can _help it. And they don't deserve to be forgiven if they let hatred drive them to hurt people who don't deserve it. Thinking the way you do… It's just really damn insulting. To us. That we can't be any better than that, that we just let our emotions control us and shouldn't demand better of ourselves and other people… You _know _you don't really believe that, Kaworu. You _know _that we're perfectly capable of choosing not to give into hate. If you really believed that hate was just something that happened, that it wasn't our faults, that we aren't _choosing _to hate you and say cruel things about you, then it wouldn't hurt you like this. And you _are _hurt, Kaworu. It would hurt you if I hated you. I can choose not to hate you, right? Because even if you are what you are, you're still my friend. And that means that if I hated you, if I _chose _to ignore all our friendship, like the people who hate you are choosing to ignore all the work you've done to protect people, then I'm making a _choice_. It's not 'just lashing out.' They're _letting themselves _lash out. They're _choosing _to pick up those knives, or put things in the food…" All the things people were doing to kill those poor kids. "Hating… Hating someone who has never _done _anything to you… That is _not right_. But it's something we should cure _ourselves _of, not something we need you and instrumentality for."

"But it is. Even Lilim acknowledge that racism is part of your species."

"Even if that's true, that doesn't… Even if we're born with something, that doesn't mean we have to let it win, we have to let it control us! People who act like that are trash, and saying we're _all _like that? I know that's what SEELE believed, that all of humanity was just trash, but you… I know you don't think like that, Kaworu! So stop… Stop hiding behind that so you don't take it personally, so you don't feel hurt! I mean, I know that people have every right to hate my parents, but that doesn't mean it doesn't hurt when they hate _me! _What my parents did doesn't give them the right to hate _me!_"

"Oh." Kaworu looked enlightened. "I am sorry, Shinji. I didn't mean to say that…"

"It's not about me right now, Kaworu!" Shinji said, gripping the angel's wet, bare arms. "This is… You can't think like that. Even if it makes it hurt less. I… I can't believe I'm saying this, but I want you to believe in people. Have a little more faith than that, than _SEELE_." For crying out loud. "You can't just let them control how you think for the rest of your life. They're _wrong_. They're wrong about us, Kaworu, and you _know _it. Or else you wouldn't like us so much. Or else you wouldn't be my friend." His Kaworu.

Who wasn't supposed to look so afraid. Shinji was supposed to be the cautious one, the one who was used to people turning on him. The one who talked to people with the expectation that something was going to go wrong, it was just a matter of what and when.

The one who was used to meeting people and then finding out that, yes, this was someone else who hated him. Kaworu… Was it that Kaworu wasn't supposed to have to be afraid like that? Who would hate Kaworu, so kind and open and everything Shinji wasn't?

Except this wasn't Kaworu Nagisa of the ordinary black hair and black eyes, unlike Shinji's exotic brown and blue. This was Tabris. Everyone who met Kaworu liked him. People ran from Tabris, ran or screamed their hate, unless they were worshippers, and…

Kaworu who was only a few months older than he was. He'd seen more of the world outside the manor than Shinji, but that wasn't saying much.

"You're just like me," Shinji realized. "It hurt you, didn't it, every time they, and Misato, everything they say about you. Just like it hurt me. You're just like me." Under the smiles, under the benevolence, they both shared memories of being just a kid, and being hated, and being told that it wasn't their fault, really, it wasn't, they hadn't done anything wrong, and yet it still hurt.

Abomination or not, red eyes and pale gray skin or not, Kaworu was just like him.

Human. And hurting. Because that was the natural state of humanity.

No wonder Kaworu wanted to tell himself that he was fine, it was fine, because he wasn't like the Lilim. No wonder so many other people wanted to stop being human. It hurt.

* * *

Normally, healing the sick was one of the most joyous of his duties.

He used to be proud of the Lilim who brought them here, because it was hard enough for ordinary people to make it to Refuge even if they were able to figure out how to contact one of the cells that was still out there in the world to get help. To make it here burdened with a sick loved one? To give up everything for the sake of saving the person who made them forget their loneliness? Parents with their precious children, children with a dying parent, husbands and wives and friends.

Who could never go back to their old lives. Who would have to stay here now, because the UN would consider those who came here seeking an abomination's help compromised and those Tabris cured contaminated.

So they really had no choice but to stay here, and work, and contribute to the survival of Refuge and SEELE's ability to construct their Evas.

He used to be happy that he could help them. Even if they mistrusted him, even if they hated him, even if they were only here because he was their last chance, at least they considered him better than death. At least they were willing to give him a chance, were willing to put their lives, minds and souls in his hands since there was at least a chance he wouldn't devour them. It was so much better than the Lilim who considered him utterly evil.

Of course there were people who didn't want to be here, who didn't want him to cure them. It was rare for a Lilim to drag a sick person here against their will out of love, but it happened. He'd cured those people too, because they were sick and even if they hated him for encroaching on them as well as for being an abomination, at least it was better than being dead. While they were still alive they could achieve happiness, surely? When they had someone who loved them so very much?

Tabris knew that all it would take was a thought to call up the records of those people. What happened to them after he cured them. If they ever forgave the ones who brought them here. If that women had killed herself, the way she'd raved she would as the orderlies moved in to restrain her.

He could do it, but he couldn't bear to know. He knew that it was better to bite the bullet, to accept the pain that was the natural state of this world than to live in doubt and fear, and yet… Not now.

"Your Holiness?"

Not when the head of the hospital was looking so concerned.

"It is distressing. To know that what I thought of as simply helping people… To Keel, this place, my power to heal: they were simply another trap," he said, and sighed. "Something to draw people here so that he could use them the way he used me. What of you?"

"Of me?" he said, with a chuckle, as though that was a silly question.

"I know that you don't believe in instrumentality," Tabris told him, standing there in the white-walled hallway outside the door to the patient's room. "I knew that within a month of meeting you. You've wanted to study my ability to heal: you wouldn't be doing that unless you believed that the Lilim would have a future where healing is necessary. A future without oneness or godhood, a future as flawed individuals that need healing. Yet the hospital that you've organized and helped to build all these years has drawn tens of thousands of people to Refuge, where they could become part of what the old men saw as merely an engine to grant them instrumentality." He held up his hand. "I don't mind. Truly, I don't. I never did. You worked to help your fellow Lilim, and that was enough. I used to think that there wasn't really any need to convince people of the virtues of instrumentality and complementation, because they would see once it was brought about, and now… I'm glad." The angel smiled. "That I haven't dashed your hopes. I just want to know how you felt, knowing that your work to benefit humanity was also benefiting those who killed so many, those you hate. Were you only sustained by the hope that one of them might come to this hospital? Did you tell yourself that it was worth it for the chance to kill them? Which mattered more to you, your hatred or your desire to help your fellow Lilim?"

He'd shocked the man into speechlessness for now, his mind racing to understand what this meant. If the angel had known all along, then had counterintelligence known? Had he been allowed to keep his position despite his disloyalty because he was good at it (yes), had there never been a chance that any of the members of SEELE would come here when they had their own doctors (no, no chance at all, and they hadn't wanted Tabris to heal them because that meant encroaching on their bodies and was too risky on top of that).

"I'm sorry for asking such personal questions," the angel said, smiling at him now with that slightly sheepish air that begged forgiveness for the awkwardness that came from not really being human, from not being able to understand how Lilim thought. "But I would like to hear your answers, if you have any for me. Healing… I know that it's something that's sacred to you, and it's sacred to me as will. Giving Lilim the chance to live and be with their loved ones. Yet to think," he said, looking down at pale hands like bleached bone, "that it was profaned like this, was used as a trap: I think that you can understand the distress this knowledge causes me. It helps, a little, to know that I was not the only one who was used. Yet it also makes it worse, because I helped them use the people I wanted to help and protect… Forgive me," he said, and there was that smile again, burying the distress that had appeared in those kind eyes as he looked at the hands that had healed so many. "I'm keeping the patient waiting, aren't I. When they are sick and I am merely distressed." Tabris turned to the door and put his hand on it.

"Wait," the doctor said, almost putting his hand on the angel's shoulder but hesitating an inch away from touching the robe.

"Yes?" Tabris asked, serene and undemanding and yet hopeful.

"You… Look," he said, pushing his hair back. "I've talked to some of the people on the team that looked after you," in the lab, when Tabris was an infant and toddler, before the betrayal. "You really care about the people here, and you started doing this when you were just a kid. Don't… Every doctor has to make decisions about people's lives. It's just that most of ours involve death," while the angel had never lost a patient, "but there's also quality of life. Who lives and who dies, how they live… Medicine is a war against death. You saved people. What they do afterwards is their problem: they _could _have tried to throw themselves on the mercies of the UN, but you _could _also have brainwashed them, and you didn't. Don't feel guilty about anything that you've done here. Saving people's lives, giving them their lives back… You've given them _miracles_."

"While you couldn't, before you came here. You had to watch them die, while I… Sorry. I hope I get over this soon, because all of you Lilim have suffered so much more than I have. I know I'm whining." The angel wiped his eyes, just in case, and smiled determinedly. "This is something that I can still do. To give them a little more life, a little more time to find happiness, even if I can't give you eternity. Yet." He nodded to himself. "Yes. This is still part of my purpose, even if they used it like everything else. I will reclaim this as well." As the country they'd used him to protect. After opening the door he paused once more, a foot on the threshold. "Would you like a child?"

The director of the hospital started to ask "What?" before realizing what Tabris had to be talking about. One of _those _children?

Maybe he actually was starting to believe if he found himself thinking that this was an honor. That he couldn't accept because he couldn't look after a kid properly. "I'm not even married."

"I know," Tabris said. "But you are very kind and healing is sacred to you, and to many of the people here, so the child would have a chance to earn your love. To be granted so many chances to make others happy, to see that his power can help the Lilim… I think that this place you have built would be a wonderful place for a child, but the most important thing of all is to be wanted. I will bring one of them here with me next time, so the little one can meet all of you. If one of you decides you wish to grant that child a home, I would be very happy." With that settled he turned back to the room full of people, a nurse, the patient and three of his family who had heard the part of the conversation about the child. "I am Tabris," he said, because introductions, even though it was obvious who he was.

That wasn't quite how he'd introduced himself before in these cases. The nurse noticed the change from the way her dark eyebrows rose slightly.

"Ted Daniels," the oldest adult in the room said, seated by the boy's bedside and not getting up yet. That would have meant letting go of the child's hand. "This is Mark, Mark Steffanus. He's my son."

A different last name, Tabris noted, but didn't comment. Stepping closer when none of them seemed especially hostile or frightened, just balanced between cautious and that desperate hope he'd seen in so many, he saw, "Chemotherapy… Cancer, or…"

"Chemotherapy and chelation treatments." The man's hands gripped the rim of the bed tightly enough his knuckles were white, but he was careful with the child's hand. "The Marduk Institute gave the report to _her_ and her new husband, not to me."

"Ah." A high contamination level, then. Chemotherapy and chelation treatments did nothing but damage the Lilim body – if anything, they might increase the contamination level, since cells affected by the power of the white seed were more resilient – but hope sprung eternal. It saddened Tabris that this child had gone through this because of his birth. He closed his eyes for a moment, standing at the other side of the child's bed. "I… am capable of lowering his contamination level. I wouldn't advise it. Those who carry the power of the white seed are healthier than other Lilim, and although I can heal everything that ails him now, there is always the future. No one here in Refuge will care about his contamination level," it was more likely than not to be seen as a blessing, "and I don't think that the UN board that decides such things would trust me to truly lower it," and adjust the child's classification. No, he'd be viewed with more suspicion after Tabris tampered with him. "Not yet, although I hope that will change." Tabris examined the child. "He is a Child of Lilith, if that matters to you. I can see that without needing to encroach on him."

"It doesn't matter," the young man in the room said shortly. "Don't do anything you don't have to."

That familiar protective hostility: the angel couldn't help smiling to see it. "I do have to check to see that anything is wrong with him. I would feel terrible if I cured someone's cancer and then they died of a burst appendix. And you are?"

"Jacob Evans," he said shortly, leaning against the wall by the window.

"Emily Richardson," the last woman in the room said, her English accent more apparent than that of the other two. "I'm Mark's aunt. Jacob is his stepbrother."

Tabris smiled at her, red eyes meeting her hazel. "He is very lucky to be so loved." Even what was done to him was almost certainly done out of love, as twisted as it was to hurt a child like this in the hope of making them better off. "I am certain that you will be able to grant him happiness." If they didn't want him made 'more human,' then they must be determined to prove to him that this didn't matter. A quick check of the records showed that Emily was the sister of Rachel, Mark's mother. The step-father… Ah. Someone like that would not have been pleased to remarry and then find out the child that came with the marriage was contaminated. It was illegal to test children beneath a certain age, although that didn't stop doctors from seeing the result when people did standard genetic workups. They'd often tell parents that their child's contamination level was fine just to reassure them, and that meant that if a couple got enough workups done and none of the doctors mentioned it, they could be almost certain what that meant. Parts of the territory Tabris now governed once had that sort of approach to ultrasounds and male versus female offspring. It was some small mercy that testing unborn children for contamination generally yielded low results that weren't much of a forecast of how contaminated they'd be by the time they reached puberty, which was when it became a problem in the eyes of many LIlim.

Not that there was any reason to believe that the children of those with high contamination levels would be angels. None of them had any chance of developing a core, and they were still Lilim or children of Armisael, not angels of the White Tree.

Yet Lilim were still afraid, and from fear came things like this, Tabris and the two medical staff present knew, as Tabris gently touched the child's forehead. The nurse had already prepped him by loading him up with nutrients, especially minerals, so it was over before anyone could ask Tabris to wait, or ask him to explain how this worked as though the nurse wouldn't have gone over it with them in order to buy time, delay the moment when an abomination would touch their loved one.

It was over before the boy, who Tabris already knew was _not _really asleep, could move his arm. It wasn't until that arm was a healthy peach (odd how Lilim considered sun-damaged skin healthy, when a 'tan' was anything but) that the boy's hand could grab Tabris' wrist, could try to grab it to tear it, to pull Tabris down so he could punch him, angry tears in his eyes.

Neither the doctor nor the nurse reacted. This, too, was normal.

"Do you really think it will help?" Tabris asked him. "Your suffering… do you value it so little? Would punching me, would even _killing _me take away the pain of even one person," like his stepfather, who fundraised for a group trying to keep the LCL out of the parts of England that were still fertile, no thanks to the Gulf Stream, "looking at you like you were a monster, like you were like me? Would it make it hurt less that your own parents," your own mother and stepfather that he'd lived with for seven years, "did that to you, and wouldn't stop even when it was killing you?" He sighed. "Before, I could have promised you that one day it wouldn't matter. That one day they would see that your contamination amount didn't mean anything at all, and they were wrong to treat you like that. That one day they would truly love you, without any reservations, and you would never be rejected again. Now, I can't promise you that. I am sorry. But I can promise you that your father, your brother and your aunt love you very much, and will do everything they can to make you happy."

Smiling, the angel told him that, "You can still hit me, if you like. I won't stop emitting the light of my soul, but you can try to hurt me, if that will help you." The abomination was kind, not an idiot. Lilim could be very inventive when it came to hurting things, as even a child trying to ambush him while he healed showed.

Often they took him up on the offer until they were exhausted enough to cry, and then he could often hold them for awhile, and say what he could to ease their pain, until he gave them back to their loved ones. This time was no different, not when the child was already crying, and clearly blaming himself not just for what was done to him but because his family had given up so much, put themselves in so much danger and disgrace in order to come here.

Even if all he could do for the Lilim sometimes was give them a target for the darkness caused by their pain other than themselves, anything he could do that could make them feel even a little bit better? When he was the cause of so much of this child's suffering?

He didn't wear longer robes to the hospital because clothes that dragged on the floor were unsanitary, but circle-cut or other large sleeves were useful for hugging Lilim. The weight and feeling sheltered seemed to help comfort them: he'd noticed the difference right away the first time he wore one of the new jackets while comforting someone.

Tabris would have liked to stay longer, to answer their questions about Refuge and try to ease their fears, but he had more duties now, and even though he could stay aware of all the data in Refuge's computer systems and respond to e-mails asking for instructions from anywhere, there were things he needed to be physically present for. Healing was an obvious one of them, but stolen – devoured – knowledge of politics told him that it was important to be present for the council debates and other such things, to remind them and get them used to the idea that he was in charge now. Lilim were creatures of habit, and he needed them to change theirs. Before, he was summoned by the council when they were debating something he had input on, or Keel wanted to remind them of what they were all there for. Now he had to weigh in on debates, and sign off on everything, although he hadn't actually had to veto any measures yet. They were still too afraid to pass anything after he made his displeasure with it clear, which was almost a pity on several levels.

"Most of the others are geriatric cases," he was told when he left the room.

"That's good." After the discovery about instrumentality, one of Tabris' decisions was to restore the youth of everyone in Refuge who was growing old. He couldn't give them immortality, but he could at least give them more time.

The promise of youth was another thing that drew Lilim to Refuge. The old men had never taken advantage of it: Tabris had thought that was a sign of their commitment to instrumentality, but now he knew what they hadn't wanted him to see. Enough to risk their lives in order to hide the truth from him.

He wished he could stop thinking about it.

He wished _everything _about his life in this place didn't remind him of it.

He wished Shinji was here.

He wished he could just bury himself in Shinji, his presence and the taste of his skin. That he could stop thinking, stop feeling the pain of betrayal and just feel, but he knew that Shinji also wanted him to think about the old men and what they had done.

Tabris knew now that Keel had tried to shape him and what Keel had tried to shape him into, but the thing was that Keel himself hadn't realized how much _Keel _had been shaped, growing up. The old men… They all knew so much about the world, it made such terrible sense to them, that even though Tabris knew that many of the things they believed in were so very wrong, that their morality was twisted, it was hard to find the source of that twisting, hard to go through why they thought what they did, step by step, and find any faulty logic. He wanted to know where they had gone wrong, he needed to avoid falling into that trap himself and yet, what Shinji said?

His words promised pain, and shouldn't truth bring enlightenment, bring an end to pa-No. That was a falsity, a fairy tale. Lilim existence _was _pain.

Was Tabris himself falling into the trap of pushing Lilim away? Of shoving them and their hatred into neat, labeled boxes so he didn't have to deal with them himself? Hatred was such a sickening thing that made people do such sick things, and yet was it not the dark side of love? Was it not hypocritical of him to desire the love of Lilim without being willing to respect their hatred?

These were such difficult questions, but was it arrogant of him to think that he should be able to find simple answers when these were things that Lilim would struggle with their entire lives? Was the idea that things should be simple nothing but a trap that childish minds were inclined to fall into?

He sighed as he flew up the side of the mountain to alight on the balcony outside the council building, which was buried deep in one of the mountains just in case Tabris was too busy during some assault to keep a bomb from reaching it, like most of the city's buildings. Many of the balconies and other exits of the complex had been enlarged from more defensible air shafts for his sake, he knew, partially because when he flew he was more visible and for the Lilim who came to the city to see him effortlessly flitting about reminded them of his nature and his power.

Well, whatever brought more light down into the depths of Shangri-La, especially when some Lilim were prone to claustrophobia. If he placed one of his children in each of Refuge's cities then he could call to them to use their light to deflect most dangers, even if they couldn't block radiation and sub-atomic particles.

If he could just avoid open war, if he could just get _all _the Lilim to focus on the problem of their future, what they were going to do because Keel's recipe for instrumentality very well might not work, and if not, what then?

He couldn't… He couldn't bear the thought of watching them all die out. Not like this. Not even if he could replace them with his children. The thought of it, of Shinji's life and everyone's lives and deaths being for nothing?

Tabris didn't shudder. Rulers didn't shudder where just anyone could see them.

Lilim really had raised deceit to the level of… No, not just an art form. They'd made it an indispensible part of their lives, hadn't they? Lying was wrong, he hated that Keel and the others had deceived him and everyone like this and yet if it weren't for deception, Shinji would surely have never been his friend.

It was so hard to know how to feel anymore, about anything, all of it so twisted up with everything else.

* * *

_Ongoing crisis of conscience, although there's an actual reason Tabris is being OOC for his character in this verse - it's interesting how various biochemical things can twist the patterns of our thoughts, _especially_ when we're not aware of it. Instinct and mental wiring are interesting things to me, and the fact he's aware now that cult-style programming was done to him doesn't automatically mean he's free of it. It only means that he _can _free himself from it, now that he has some of an idea where the logic holes are. _

_Interesting contrast, for a Shinji to have more faith in human nature, isn't it? There are multiple ways to dehumanize people, and it's hard to get rid of psychological defense mechanisms. Especially when someone is aware that they're already in danger of a breakdown and doesn't want to let go of the raft, even if it is being dragged towards a waterfall and they know they need to make for shore._


	20. By Your Side

He appeared on the security system as soon as he entered the area they monitored, which was a point in his favor. The black raincoat and umbrella were still enough to make them give him a second glance because of how much they covered, but not much of one since the scanners showed that he wasn't carrying anything that could possibly be a gun or an explosive.

It was when he turned towards the gate and its intercom instead of passing on by that a pair of the patrolling guards actually approached him.

They were startled enough to reach for their sidearms when he pushed back the hood in order to reveal pale hair and a young face, but neither of them drew. One of them thought that if this was the abomination, then shouldn't the red eyes have tipped them off, shouldn't they have glowed in the shadows under the hooded raincoat? They looked some nondescript dark color, between the overcast sky, the yellowish streetlights, the white light streaming from the guardhouse's open door and the pale blue lights on the gate itself.

Last they'd heard the abomination was at the embassy in Tokyo-2: how had he gotten here from there without being seen flying? Someone should have given them a heads-up.

How had he _always _gotten here before, the older of the two wondered, adjusting the hat that sat on top of peppery gray hair. It wasn't as though 'Kaworu Nagisa' wasn't familiar with Tokyo-2 and 3's excellent public transit system. Wouldn't it be easier for him to get here now than it had been before, when he had to get past Dr. Akagi's eyes in the sky to reach Tokyo-3? The only hard part would have been slipping past the media, demonstrators and UN guards around the embassy, and with the embassy's security staff to arrange a distraction?

"I'm sorry to come by without any notice," the young musician (who was still both of those, it was the rest that made him a potential threat) said apologetically, tilting his umbrella a little to block more of the rain as the wind shifted its angle. "Is this alright?"

"Come inside while I call up to the main house and ask," the senior guard told him, both because he wasn't going to leave someone standing out in the rain and was because it was better that Tabris get out of sight before anyone else noticed that silver hair.

"Thank you, Sergeant Taro," Tabris said, finally stepping in under the overhang and closing his umbrella, tapping the tip of it on the ground to get rid of some of the water before he followed the man who invited him inside the door, the junior officer following him in and giving the dark evening street a wary eye in case there were any other surprises before closing the door.

The sergeant was already dialing the main house, because this was above his pay grade even if once upon a time, Kaworu Nagisa hadn't been. He was watching him out of the corner of his eyes on general principles, and even though he had a good eye for faces it was hard to believe that it was just the colors of his hair, skin and eyes that were different. The abomination's features seemed sharper somehow than Kaworu's had. More furtive, or was that just nervousness? Just the knowledge that he could have come all this way, made it through streets full of people who had come here for the chance to contribute to killing his kind, for nothing?

He would be getting older, too, wouldn't he. Just like Shinji, who already looked too much like an adult. There was a hardness to those blue eyes, a wariness that belonged on veterans, but then Shinji had helped kill a man while he was eight, one of those damn kidnappers. Kaworu's growth spurt had already started when he was revealed for what he was: it looked like he was still springing up like a weed, although the guard was able to restrain the urge to make any garden of Eden puns.

"They said you can go on up," he told the teenager after a minute.

"Thank you," Tabris said, letting out a soft sigh of relief. "Sorry for the trouble." He walked past the guards' bench towards the opposite door, pulling his hood back over his head and raising his umbrella as he said, "I spent all day in a clean room speaking to one UN Committee after another through a channel I'm sure they were watching rather suspiciously," for signs he'd encroached on it, "and I needed to get out of there."

"At least they're willing to talk to you?" It wasn't diplomatic recognition – Russia, India (or what was _left _of India, since there hadn't been anything but ocean between that country and the South Pole), China and the governments in exile of other Himalayan countries would throw seven kinds of fits if the UN gave SEELE diplomatic recognition. The Limited Engagement Guidelines had been worked out mostly by negotiators in the field, even generals at the front lines, until Japan gave them the Tokyo-2 Embassy mostly in order to expedite things so NERV could do their job and defend Lilith, but partially as a 'fuck you' to China for nuking their capital after Second Impact. The embassy in Russia was older, but that one was the result of an ultimatum from SEELE to Russia along the lines of 'negotiate border agreements with us, or we'll keep overrunning more and more of your country until we hit what used to be the North Pole.' It was less about diplomatic recognition and more about having a mailing address.

He hung his head for a moment, hand on the latch of the sliding door. "No. It's very clear they're still not willing to commit to any negotiation. Not unless it's about reparations or unconditional surrender, and those things I simply cannot do. How does one make amends to the dead? There is nothing they would accept: _money _can't set things right. They just want to drain resources from Refuge in order to weaken our defense preparations and I can't return that land, not when what's going on now proves that my people would not be _safe _if I did that." Collaborators. Those who had served SEELE and the abomination, when abominations could look like humans now? Not even contamination level had given the Children of Armisael away, not until NERV England, which had done most of the work on pattern detection for identifying the abominations that attacked Tokyo-3, had compared Lilith's and Armisael's wave patterns and isolated some key differences.

Not that humans weren't _already _the children of an abomination: did Lilith versus Armisael really make that much difference, enough to kill kids over?

"So I spent the entire day listening to prepared speeches about how much they hate SEELE and how I have no real right to exist on a human world, as though humans and angels weren't the same thing to begin with, I didn't have Lilim DNA and humanity wasn't in danger of extinction unless they do something other than rattle sabers in order to impress their constituents. It almost makes it worse that this constitutes progress: hopefully at least some of them will start thinking about the future now they've had a chance to get that off their chests. At least it helped me understand some part of why Misato and so many others drink."

Not that the abomination had the option of getting drunk: alcohol was what had revealed it all those months ago. "So it was come here or try to find something that would take my mind off it, and I'm too powerful to risk impairing my judgment." A drunk or high abomination was a terrifying thought, especially when this one had the same power that caused the Rapture. "Oh dear." He shook his head, opening the door and spreading his umbrella. "I was complaining again, wasn't I. Negative emotions seem to want to get _out_: no wonder Lilim say so many hateful things… Really, it's a good sign that no one tried to kill me while I was there. Thank you for letting me wait inside," he told them, and left, walking quickly up the driveway, or technically down it. The Fuyutsuki house was nestled in a small valley so that any blasts from battles against the abominations would have to go through several hills in order to reach it.

The junior officer stared after him a little obviously, through the window after Taro pulled the door shut. "You aren't that new," he told him. Jiro had been assigned here six months before the first abomination attacked: even if he hadn't been on duty the first time Tabris visited as himself, he'd seen Kaworu walk up that driveway before. Even if, before, he'd moved quickly out of happy eagerness instead of hurry driven by frustration. If not longing.

"That just makes it worse. I was on duty the night of the afterparty."

Taro didn't have to wonder which one he meant. Misato had been to plenty of afterparties in the years he'd served here, but _the _afterparty was something else entirely. Not a party after a party, but a party after one of the performances Shinji and Kaworu had been part of, something about some indie rock group wanting to experiment with an orchestral backdrop. Thanks to Misato and Kaji the young master knew damn well how to avoid _drinking _anything spiked or worse, drugged, and to avoid the brownies, but someone had gotten creative and used some of one of _those _kinds of mushrooms in one of the entrees. And Shinji liked mushrooms.

At least it wasn't LSD: that was some small mercy. People could have LSD flashbacks years after taking the drug, and if Shinji'd had that happen to him while _piloting_?

The Professor, Kaji and the entire Intelligence Division had damn near had everyone involved sent to one of the penal colonies that worked to build walls to block LCL from spreading into the soil. Normally the Professor used to regard Kaworu as one of the best things to ever happen to his son, but Kaworu was the one who did Shinji's booking and that made him responsible for Shinji being there in the first place.

It took Misato to let Kaworu even visit to see that Shinji was still breathing after the ambulance hauled him off, and once Shinji stopped seeing things he'd had the only yelling argument with his Dad Taro could remember in all his years working here. It took both of his kids to make the Professor see reason… Or maybe he'd had the right of it, and Shinji would have been better off saying goodbye to his only friend then and there.

"He was what, thirteen?" Shinji'd been thirteen. "And scrawny, and scared. Wasn't he the one who noticed that something was wrong and called Section Two from the party?"

Sergeant Taro nodded. He'd been skiing – you had to go out of the country for that these days – but he'd still gotten updates. Hell, the entire world had gotten updates: the pilots were just that _vital_. "Polite and cheerful kid, normally. Nothing like either of the young misses." Asuka was Asuka, and, "You'd think another one would act more like Rei. Not that she's a bad kid," he added, and not just because he wanted to keep his job. For most people abominations were abominations, but he'd seen Rei spend six months with scraped knees because they'd programmed her with how to walk or something before Misato brought her home but that wasn't the same as actually doing it.

Then there was the ongoing drama with her and the Aida kid, who was staying in Shinji's wing for now because his family was still evacuated and his best friend was here. That had started up before they found out about Kaworu, so they'd already known that it was possible for thi-people like Rei to get a crush on someone, and now this.

"Shinji woke up when he was there, right? What if he…" Jiro wiggled his fingers, not wanting to use the word encroachment.

"When the kid was hooked up to all those monitors? You'd think they'd have detected it." You'd think something like that would have been too much of a risk, but after watching the black-coated figure run to the house knowing that the rain had nothing to do with the reason he was running (Kaworu was perfectly happy to splash in puddles after the rain, after dropping off his violin and music), who knew. Maybe he had taken that chance. Shinji hadn't woken up right when he got there, but that made sense, didn't it?

It wasn't a chance he would take lightly, not when he was the one who had taken Shinji's hand and led him through those puddles, laughing with delight on a spring morning only last year.

* * *

"That's it, that's what you smell like," Shinji realized, watching Kaworu use a borrowed towel to get the cold raindrops out of his hair, even though the angel didn't need to worry about catching a cold. "Rain."

Kaworu tilted his head. "I had my AT field on at a detectable level most of today: do I really smell that much like ozone? I did change clothes before I came, but I didn't bathe." Even though he'd wanted to purify himself of the atmosphere of that room, the hatred in those words, he'd wanted to see Shinji more.

Huh? "Ozone?"

"Lightning creates it, and so can AT fields," Kaworu explained. "I've been told that I smell like the storm."

"Not just that," Shinji said, feeling a little annoyed on Kaworu's behalf. Calling him the storm: was it one of SEELE who said that, wanting him to fight for them? "Rain." He took the towel and dried Kaworu off a little more, trying to see what he could do about the water that had gotten through both the raincoat and Kaworu's jacket. "I'd say that we should get you out of those wet clothes," part of Shinji woke up a little at the thought of Kaworu minus that clothing (or minus most of it, all but the gloves), "but Dad only let you in because he wants you to come to dinner." Which Shinji wasn't looking forward to. "Misato's at NERV tonight," so she'd be no help. "It's just us, Horaki and Aida. Maybe Suzuhara, if he's up to it." Not that he had been so far, which made Shinji a little worried.

"I'd offer to heal him, but…" Kaworu's voice trailed off. Suzuhara was a pilot. He'd be in trouble if he was compromised.

A pilot. One who had already been encroached on by one angel. "Actually," Shinji said thoughtfully, "I don't think you could possibly make things any worse. Let's ask Horaki at dinner." Since they might need her to convince Suzuhara to accept an angel's help.

"What about his little sister?" Kaworu asked hopefully as he recovered the towel. "She was injured when one of my siblings attacked too, wasn't she?"

"We'll see." Touji's desire for his sister to get better would be at war with his desire to protect her, especially after what he'd gone through when another angel encroached on him. No, "I'll do my best," Shinji said, amending that statement.

"Thank you," Kaworu said, one eye peeking out from under Shinji's dark blue towel with that soft, grateful smile.

Shinji _really _wanted to just grab him, kiss him senseless and boneless and forget all about dinner, but this was still Dad's house and Shinji wanted Kaworu and his father, his _real_ father, to get along. It wasn't very likely to happen, but there was a limit to how miserable dinner could make Kaworu if Shinji held his hand under the table.

* * *

"You aren't going to eat anything?" Shinji asked when Kaworu didn't serve himself anything from the platters in the center of the table.

He shook his head. "I can't afford to die now," Tabris said, and Shinji realized that he didn't know all of what Kaworu's allergies were, but the household had known that Tabris would be coming to dinner for almost ten minutes now, and one of his confirmed vulnerabilities was alcohol.

It was sad, but it made sense. Still, "Aren't you hungry? And I have some of those shots for Rei, I could go get one."

"I'll be fine, Shinji," Kaworu assured him. "I don't need to eat. I get hungry, because this form is like that of a Lilim, but I don't need to eat. I'll stop being hungry in half an hour or so."

The now-ex-pilot wanted to argue, but "If you're sure…" He couldn't stand the thought of Kaworu dying now, either. "You'll eat something back at the embassy?"

"I promise," Kaworu said, even though he didn't need to eat. He looked regretful, though. "Eating together is a part of companionship. I don't want to make you feel lonely, or to feel myself as though there is this gulf between us," even though there was, and that was why Shinji could eat here and he couldn't. "Enmity between our houses."

"Like star-crossed lovers?" Shinji grimaced at the thought as he looked around furtively, making sure that no one else was here yet before shifting his chair closer to Kaworu.

"No," Kaworu told him. "For us to meet and come to care for each other was written in the prophecies, while star-crossed lovers are fated never to be together. What I feel for you is something that was meant to be. What I fear is that it wasn't meant to be like this for very long."

"Until death or instrumentality," Shinji knew, remembering what little Kaworu told him about the prophecies.

"Or both," Kaworu said, nodding and taking Shinji's left hand in his own. "But I can't die in accordance with the ritual now, not when I don't know if it will grant you perfect happiness or destroy you along with everyone else. I don't know," he said quietly. "I used to have faith, but what I was taught to believe in… I'm sorry." Shinji saw the light of the dining room glinting off the wetness in Kaworu's eyes before he looked away.

He had to do something about that, even if all he could do was pick up a napkin and wipe at Kaworu's face. It was still hard to tell if Kaworu was wearing makeup, but probably, if he'd been sitting there with people staring at him all day. It was part of his armor, wasn't it? The impenetrable AT field, the light of the soul that could not be trespassed on, and to attempt it was to risk destroying the world in the process. By creating Kaworu, they'd turned Adam's AT field on itself, part of it trying to destroy the invading life and part of it just a baby, just wanting to live.

When had he lost that? When had they managed to make him so willing to die? It _frustrated _Shinji, but now wasn't the time to growl at anyone, not when he could hear two people heading towards them. One of them was Aida, but Hikari moved quietly enough that he could mistake her for staff. Staff might be worse, since most of them reported to the UN, and for them to know that Tabris was crying? After the rough day they'd given him? Shinji wouldn't let them have that victory. Scenting blood, they'd try to draw more, and he hated to see Kaworu hurt like this.

"Are you sure you're okay for dinner?" Shinji asked him with a hushed voice. "I'm not _officially _under house arrest, we can go somewhere else if you…"

Kaworu was shaking his head. "I need to do this at some point, don't I? He is the one who has granted you a home, and happiness, even if he caused the deaths of so many Lilim."

Shinji had to blink at that, because even if he _knew _that Fuyutsuki was 'the Great Traitor' to SEELE, hearing that from _Kaworu_? He wanted to protest, wanted to say that was just not right. Sure, a lot of people, quite a bunch of them innocent thanks to how the old bastards muddied the waters to spread blame around and confuse the issue, had died because of Fuyutsuki revealing the conspiracy, but SEELE was trying to destroy the world! _Everyone _would have died if he hadn't! And Dad had just gotten the truth out, he had nothing to do with all the people who started killing people, or SEELE deciding to conquer themselves a country and start an open war with the world instead of staying in hiding!

…Well, it wasn't realistic to expect them to do that, not when they weren't going to just give up on Third Impact and as it turned out, they needed Evas to do that for them instead of just Kaworu, but none of that was his Dad's fault! How could Kaworu seriously believe that?!

Oh, right. _They _were why.

"I'm sorry," Kaworu said, seeing Shinji's expressions. "I shouldn't have said that about the man who has been so kind to you."

"That's not…" Shinji trailed off because they couldn't have his conversation now, when Hikari had just walked in, or rather opened the door from Misato's wing and stood staring nervously on the threshold, and Aida swung open another door a few moments later, walking in a ways before stopping in his tracks. Probably due to a combination of the whole scene (Shinji and someone _holding hands) _with the fact this was an abomination, so on the one hand Aida wanted to keep something resembling a safeish distance but on the other hand, _questions_. "It's not that you said it, alright?" He let go of Kaworu's hand. It wasn't that he'd said it, because Shinji wanted Kaworu to be honest, with him anyway. It was that it was the honest truth as Kaworu saw it, and where was Shinji even going to start? If people were responsible for everything that happened because of anything they were even involved in…

Oh, right. Kaworu did blame himself for Second Impact. To be fair, so did most of the world, but it still wasn't fair.

Still, if this was the only thing that he could do for Kaworu, try to help him keep it together and be scarred less by the world so he didn't come to hate it or anything, then it was kind of a good thing that there was so much work to do, so he'd be pulling his own weight. He'd just been thinking more along the lines of threatening people and so on, playing bad cop so maybe people would realize that Kaworu was a really kind person.

At least he still had some time to think this through more, figure out exactly what he was going to do.

For now, though, "Hey, Kensuke, Horaki," he said, nodding at both of them.

"Congratulations on your promotion, Sergeant Aida," Kaworu said, even though when he was Kaworu, Kensuke'd given him permission to call him Kensuke.

Kensuke adjusted his glasses before deciding on, "Thank you."

"Did you ever meet Horaki?" Shinji asked Kaworu.

"Yes, when you invited me to perform with you at your school's festival." As backup, mostly. That was after Asuka arrived and Rei was still learning. Most of the people in the music club at NERV's piloting academy were there because the psychs had told them to get a hobby or else. Even though it was their asses Asuka was going to kick into shape even _harder _if they'd ruined the performance, not that of the one person there comparable to (even better than) her, Shinji'd wanted another good violinist present so that Asuka, Rei and Kaworu could carry that section and Asuka didn't end up feeling personally embarrassed by their performance.

Unfortunately, Asuka had been personally offended by Shinji's maestro being willing to teach Shinji and Kaworu, but not willing to add her as another student, and then Shinji kicking her out of his music room even though he was always happy to have someone in there when it was Kaworu. Fortunately, most of the rest of the violinists were able to read the atmosphere between the two of them well enough to put on the best performance of their lives, probably out of fear for their lives if they embarrassed Asuka's music club in front of her rival.

"Y-Yes, I remember," she said, because it was hard to forget. Kaworu was handsome enough to make her heart skip a beat, especially when he smiled. She'd almost hoped that she would fall for him, because someone from another school, who wasn't a pilot and clearly wasn't prejudiced against people with high contamination levels if he was Shinji's best friend was much more suitable than someone who was going to be under her command.

Except Asuka couldn't stand him for some reason, and it was almost enough to make Hikari wonder if Asuka had fallen for him and either been rebuffed or offended that he wasn't pursuing her, except even though Kaworu was kind enough to help Horaki sort out all the sheet music when it turned out one of the teachers had put it out of the way somewhere in just any old order right before the performance, it was very clear that he was willing to take the time instead of focusing on tuning up because he was just that sort of person, not because he was interested in her at all.

She'd found herself checking for an earring, wondering if he was gay. Hikari didn't know how it was at most schools, but when everyone was on birth control, few of them had any parents to approve or disapprove of their actions anymore and quite a few of them were probably going to die, the beta-type pilots mostly did what they pleased when it came to… adult things, except for the officers.

Rei and Shinji were the only two who were never approached, Rei because she was an abomination and the boys whispered about what might _really _be under that skirt and Shinji because he just wasn't approachable, on top of the fact his parents were much of the reason they were all there in the first place.

It was nice, really, or so she'd thought at the time. That even Shinji had someone, since it wasn't like there'd ever really been a chance that he could make friends at school. There was her, but she was Asuka's friend first and foremost. Kensuke was mostly curious and Touji had taken pity on the poor antisocial bastard, but Shinji really hadn't known how to open up or be friendly. He was lucky that there was someone with the patience to chatter for him, and learn to interpret his nods and half-sentences.

Someone who loved him enough.

Kensuke was the one to say, "A little warning next time?"

"He didn't?" No, he hadn't, Shinji realized. "Dad said he'd have you two called to dinner: guess I shouldn't have assumed he'd tell you who else was coming." Not when he'd want Kaworu off-guard and uncomfortable.

Shinji blamed Kaji for forcing Kozo to master the art of making young men sweat bullets, but really, like so much else in Shinji's life, it was entirely his parents' fault. Oh, Professor Fuyutsuki's past as an actual college professor certainly didn't hurt, but forcing himself to work for Gendo Ikari long enough to find out the truth behind the Katsuragi Expedition now allowed Fuyutsuki to intimidate just about anyone by asking himself one simple question: What would Gendo Ikari do?

In this case sweep in, sit at the head of the large family dining table and look at Kaworu over steepled hands. He was still wearing the uniform jacket of the head of NERV, someone whose job it was to kill abomintions even if Misato had command over military operations. Both Aida and Horaki straightened up when he entered, although since the two of them weren't in uniform no salutes were necessary, and sat down promptly when he sat.

It was somewhat gratifying that Shinji also instantly straightened as though caught: less gratifying that the abomination simply gave him a regal nod. "Professor Fuyutsuki. Thank you for allowing me into your home." Not just tonight, but the other times he'd been allowed to visit Shinji.

"Please, think nothing of it," he said with a grandfatherly smile. Don't think it implies anything about my opinion of you, much less that I'm happy to have you here – that was clearly what was really meant by that statement. "It's just a pity Misato can't be here."

"Ah." Kaworu smiled. "So this is the dreaded 'meet the parents' conversation. I'm glad. Both that Shinji has a father who cares for him, and that you're willing to acknowledge our bond even that much."

"Dreaded by you, or just dreaded by Lilim in general?"

Tabris looked thoughtful for a moment before responding to that. "Somewhat dreaded. It may be overconfident of me, but I don't think this could possibly be as bad as the talks that took place earlier today. I managed to sit through that, so I think I can endure this. You, at least, aren't going to imply that your son is a whore and a traitor to humanity."

"No." Fuyutsuki scowled at the memory of having to sit there and listen to that. Even from some of the UN delegates that were firmly on NERV's side in the current debate and thus Shinji's: they were trying to provoke a reaction out of the abomination, get a read on it, and he understood that. Those delegates had to prove that they were hard on abominations, that it simply was just that important to leave Armisael alive. Accusations of SEELE sympathies were already flying: they were _always _flying, but more was on the line now than at any point since the construction of the Geofront and the finalization of their plans for the Evas.

"I'm glad that at least no one brought up Rei," Tabris said thoughtfully, picking up an empty wine glass and examining it. Since everyone present had studied the AT field, it didn't escape their attention that even though it wasn't apparent in the brightly-lit room, the pattern of shadows and refracted light coming off the crystal goblet revealed that Tabris was emitting light. So his AT field was up and he wanted them to know that, hmm? "Even though Rei is not Lilith, she still bears the soul of your progenitor. It surprised me that the UN even debated whether or not to allow her to live."

"No one likes to think about Lilith," Shinji told him. "She's not very photogenic, especially since GEHIRN hacked off half of her to make Unit 01."

Tabris nodded. "Appearances are important to the Lilim: I heard the Zuul reference when Lilim spoke of Rei and Lilith enough times while incognito to watch the movie myself. I had to wonder if there was any significance to the fact that when he tried to think of something that would never hurt him, that Lilim imagined something so like Lilith's true form?" Soft and white and well-padded, although GEHIRN's cutting equipment had removed Lilith's child-bearing hips. "But, probably not. The Lilim have created so many stories and images to draw on. It's not as though you've spent the hundreds of thousands of years since your creation simply waiting for instrumentality."

The empty wineglass drew their attention to the other empty plates and glasses around Tabris' place at the table. "You aren't going to have anything?" Fuyutsuki asked him.

"Even if you intended to offer me bread and salt, I would have to refuse it," Tabris told him plainly. "I won't put you in that position. You answer to the UN government, and I've read the formal declaration of war. If you had the opportunity to try to destroy me and didn't take it, then you would be a traitor to all mankind, is that not so? I have been branded an enemy of all life on this world, I am capable of ending your race and the hands of all Lilim are supposed to be raised against me. As long as I keep my guard up, then you and Shinji can honestly say if asked that you didn't act because I didn't give you any openings."

Shinji frowned at himself: he couldn't believe he hadn't figured out that Kaworu was doing that. "Did you really think of that on your own?"

"Am I doing it because of what I learned from Keel, you mean? No." Kaworu shook his head. "I've wanted to make friends with Lilim for a long time. The declaration was an obstacle to that." Consorting with SEELE and abominations was a _serious _offense: saying that it was illegal to be his friend was putting it mildly. Too mildly. "I had my AT field up even while I posed as Kaworu Nagisa. If NERV's detection equipment wasn't set to ignore AT fields below a certain level, every Lilim in Tokyo-3 would set it off. It's not a matter of activating an AT field the way you do in your Evas: the light of the soul is something that just _is_.

"And yet I was hurt that day. Not even by Shinji, by Ritsuko Akagi and simple accident. Without realizing it, I had my shield down in the presence of _Misato Katsuragi._ I may admire her, but I know very well that she means me harm." Kaworu turned to the side, met Shinji's eyes. "That is why you are the only one who can kill me, Shinji. That which is born from the white seed is supposed to be perfect, without weakness, and yet simple chemical compounds can make my body turn on itself. I should be a life form that evolves to overcome all obstacles, a being that should not know fear. However, I was born from the rape of Adam. From the violation of sacred territory, a violation of the very soul of a god. When Adam brought me forth, it wished to protect itself. To destroy that which violated it. So, I was born with a heightened immune response that is willing to go so far as to destroy this body and an instinctive defensive reaction. My shield is _never _down. The vessel of my soul is _never _unprotected." He looked at the rest of them now: did they understand what that meant? The position Shinji was in, how Tabris must feel about him?

"In accordance with the prophecies," Fuyutsuki said, although he looked more disgruntled by it than anything else. "Provided the portions of the Secret Dead Sea Scrolls you've released weren't tampered with." Every test they could perform showed that they hadn't been, but who knew the limits of the power of the abominations? Especially this one. "I'm sure you know how all of this is to your advantage."

"Not really," Tabris told him, raising a grey eyebrow. "Even if I managed to convince you that it wasn't possible to kill me except in a certain way, that wouldn't stop the Lilim from trying other ways. It certainly never stopped Misato Katsuragi. If I was trying to cover other vulnerabilities, eventually you would find them. After all, if you assume that I'm lying about this, then the lie itself would be proof I do have other vulnerabilities. I would only tell a story like this if it was true or I had some weakness I needed to hide."

Fuyutsuki nodded: he'd admit that. "Calling it predestined, though? Second Impact was predestined. So is Third Impact. Shinji has already had far too much of his life dictated by their prophecies, by all we had to comply with in order to fight the angels." Building the Evas, using them, Shinji going out there and piloting: too much. "There are several reasons why I should do everything I can to keep you away from my son. That's the second-best of the lot. If this is fated, that itself is a reason to stand against it with everything we have."

Tabris acknowledged that by raising the glass, and then put it back on the table. "What, then, do you want of me? Or are you like much of the UN, and there is nothing that I could do to win your approval? Not even restoring the world to a paradise, bringing back everyone lost because of the Rapture and your wars, granting all Lilim the immortality I possess…" Kensuke stiffened when he realized the abomination was talking about Third Impact, and he frowned. He got the point, but it was still in bad taste.

"My son was brought into this world in accordance with those prophecies," Fuyutsuki said, frowning himself. "Those two had him _precisely so that _he would suffer, break and give them what they wanted. You are a part of all of this: even if I did trust you, even if I did believe that you had everyone's best interests, or what you _think_ are everyone's best interests at heart, if you really cared for my son, then you would leave him alone. So far, we may have diverged from SEELE and Yui's scenarios, but every part of the prophecy we know of is still on track. Including this one. But," he admitted with a sigh. "There's nothing in the prophecies about you two dating. Even if I kept you apart until such time as Unit 01 is recovered and the UN orders Shinji into action, that wouldn't be enough to put them off-track. At this point, it seems the only thing I can do to defy those damn moldy old scrolls is the same thing I've done for years: try to make these children," his gesture encompassed the absent Rei, Asuka and Misato, "happy.

"Try to let them find enough joy to see that life is worth living, find enough reasons to be strong that fate won't be able to break them. I still don't like it," Fuyutsuki said, eyeing Tabris with distaste. "The more he cares about you, the more it will hurt him when you die, and that would make it much easier for my former student," Yui, the ghost in the Eva, "to break him. I've given the UN my recommendation: since we know Shinji is supposed to kill you, that's at least _one _thing we can still try to knock off course. Then again, if it's an area effect, if you're randomly rendered vulnerable," when he was close to Shinji and distracted, "then the wording…" He sighed, pushing back hair that had long since gone gray, a much darker shade than Kaworu's. "I'm the one who made the rule about no shop talk at the dinner table, you'd think I'd be capable of keeping it," he said to himself, getting to his feet to lean forward over the table and start serving himself. "How is Suzuhara doing?"

Shinji and Tabris looked at each other. Without even needing to look up from the rice, Fuyutsuki said, "No shop talk at the dinner table. If you _did _suggest anything along the lines of laying on of hands, I'd have to tell you no." Have to forbid the abomination from tampering with an Eva pilot. "Let me try again: useful weather we're having, isn't it… No, rain just ties into the LCL and groundwater problem." As long as enough water was flowing outwards, it was harder for the LCL to make its way inland.

"I was out in it," Tabris said, picking up the wineglass again for the sake of something to do with his hands. "It was pouring, but it wasn't too hot or too cold. There are places where the rain is so hot that I've seen people dive underwater to get away from it."

"Did you really walk all the way here?" Fuyutsuki asked him. Had he flown most of the way and dodged or encroached on their eyes in the sky?

Tabris shook his head. "The public transit was deserted." The trains were automatic, and on a day like today? Especially since they were mostly light rail, not underground with stations protected from rare weather like this. "The exercise helped, and making my way here from Tokyo-2 again was nostalgic." Taking the trains like a Lilim.

Kensuke and Hikari were still watching, although Kensuke was watching while he ate.

"If I had called ahead, it would have had to go through some member of one of the committees who spent today airing their grievances at me, and with those grievances fresh in their minds?" Old wounds reopened by hateful words, old anger given more fuel to burn: they were too likely to listen to emotions instead of tactics and forbid him to go. "Better to ask forgiveness than permission, and best of all to do neither. A lot of the council, old and new," those who believed in SEELE's true doctrine and those who believed in Tabris, "felt that I shouldn't do… quite a lot of things. I found it was best to just go and do them. If I was turned away at your gate, at least the walk would have helped me clear my head."

"And you liked slipping through Tokyo-3," Shinji said, finally getting involved in the conversation. "Right under their noses."

Tabris blinked at him and laughed, startled. "I know that Lilim can enjoy doing naughty things, but… If I was found, I would have scared people, or possibly even provoked a disturbance." He could get out of there easily: Lilim couldn't fly. If they'd thought he was there visiting someone other than Shinji? "No, I just wanted to be _away _for awhile. Usually I go flying. Actually, now that I think about it, perhaps not being watched was part of it," he thought to himself. "If I'd flown, either they would have watched me the entire time or I would have had to take enough control to hide myself from the satellites, and I'm trying to do less of that." Less infecting of UN military equipment. "I should have taken the time to disguise myself, just in case."

"Why didn't you?" Kensuke wondered, chasing a noodle around his bowl.

"Shinji… Shinji asked me to stop hiding myself so much. I didn't even take the time to button this shirt at the cuffs," Kaworu said, lifting up one of his arms, looking at how much skin showed through the long slit in the sleeve, something that had become part of dress shirt design thanks to the Eternal Summer. "I knocked the cufflinks onto the floor while I was changing, didn't I? Drat."

"From what you've told me," Shinji said, "They'll be happy that you're leaving them something to do."

"More like worried, under the circumstances."

"I've never seen you wear black gloves before," Shinji said next, changing the subject.

"Most of me was hidden in the raincoat, but there was a good chance that people would see my hands," Kaworu explained. "And white gloves, in the rain? I ruined a pair of them that way, once. When I went to the Maestro's," and later Shinji's, "In bad weather, I wore a pair like this and my white ones under them."

"Two pairs of gloves?" Hikari was the one to ask. She remembered liking those gloves, thin and white. It was a shame they'd gotten so dusty before they found the right box.

"I painted my hands and did my fingernails, but there was always a chance some Lilim would have a solvent on their hands," Kaworu told her. "When I was a small child, before Refuge was founded? If I was found, the people who sheltered me would have been killed. So I always took every precaution I could." He looked down into the wineglass now, even though it was a shotglass, not a wineglass, that revealed his deception. "And now, I find that they hoped that I would slip up. That I would experience the cruelty of Lilim. I am half-Lilim, and back then I was very small and hadn't harmed anyone: if it weren't for my AT field, Adam's blast would have shattered this planet. And yet I could read their hatred, and I knew that if I was caught, nothing would have stayed their hands. Guns if they can, bare hands if that's all they have, words if they can do nothing else to hurt.

"Shinji wants me to believe that hatred is not the nature of the Lilim, but when I first walked among people who weren't members of SEELE, the entire world was talking about the discovery of the truth behind Second Impact. About how much they wanted to kill. I didn't even need to encroach to sense it: anger has a taste, it's something that weighs heavily on the air. I wanted to free you from that crushing darkness. I tried to accept it, to forgive you for something you couldn't help, and set it aside. I accepted Keel's doctrine, those easy answers, because it was better than the alternative. Now, I find that I have to reconsider everything. Have to think about things I locked away for good reason. Strange, that this troubles me more than the threat of war, but then except for my infancy in the lab, I have always been at war. Lilim pray for peace, but is it something that you are capable of achieving without instrumentality?" The glass turned in his hands. "Fidgeting like this: all this power, limitless energy, but I don't know what I can do with it. Not anymore."

Fuyutsuki coughed. "I can tell you one thing: no one's life goes according to plan." So stop complaining. "I was well on my way to tenure, and then a punk called from a police station and said one of my graduate students had told him to call me when he got himself hauled in." Yes: the day he met Gendo Ikari was the day everything started going straight to hell.

"I know that the dreams of Lilim are always dashed," Tabris told him, "but I was meant to be something else, something better. So that all of you could one day have better existences. The thought of being imperfect: I already knew that I wasn't all-powerful, that the wills of Lilim could balk mine, but I wanted to give you happiness. How can I give what I don't have, save when he is by my side?" Shinji. "I know that I must 'settle' for what I can achieve, but I have no idea what is realistic and what isn't. Only the feeling that most of what is needed is not realistic. That this world is still doomed to a slow death, and perhaps instrumentality is the only thing that might save any of it, but perhaps the ritual will fail, and then what if there _was _another hope? All I can do if I cause Third Impact is kill all of you and fill the world with my children, just like the other angels. They would be immortal, at least, but would they suffer just like you do, if even I… forgive me. I'm ruining your dinner, aren't I." By talking like this. He lowered his head, putting his hands in his lap.

They glanced at him, wondering why he wasn't asking to be excused, but Shinji and his dad knew that Kaworu attending this dinner was the price of him being her. Or perhaps he'd even be kicked out after the dinner, and this uncomfortable silence was all the time he would get with Shinji.

Red eyes closed and he seemed almost meditative, taking slow, even breaths as though he was trying to get himself under control. After glancing at Kensuke, Shinji decided to just go ahead and touch Kaworu's shoulder. The so-called angel gave him a second's grateful smile in thanks, although it was still tinged with sadness.

Shinji frowned and motioned for Kaworu to, "Stand up for a second." He pulled his friend's chair next to his, pulled Kaworu's hand to get him to sit back down, and then tugged Kaworu to lean on him. "There," he said, with a glance at his Dad daring for him to comment as Kaworu rested his head on Shinji's shoulder. They could see the tension leave that body, and maybe Kensuke looked at his own empty wineglass, because it was glass, and the pieces would be sharp, and it was a pity he'd left his gun in his room because he wasn't going to carry it in the presence of the Commander.

This was an abomination, like the one responsible for Touji… but it was Shinji who fought that thing, nearly getting himself killed coming up with a way to get Touji out of there even somewhat intact.

No: even if Tabris looked so peaceful right now, it knew better than to let its guard down, right? So no point in trying anything.

This was good food, too, and he couldn't start something in a house where he was a guest, he'd get their dining room blown up. He _really _wished he had his camera on him, though. It sucked that he wasn't allowed to use it here, since the layout of this building was classified.

It looked very sweet, but what were the odds the abomination had its eyes closed like that because it was focused on doing something to Shinji?

"Can Kaworu stay?" Shinji asked when he was bolting down the food on his plate.

"He has another… appointment with the UN in the morning," Fuyutsuki said. They weren't negotiations, not technically, and they weren't interrogating the angel or putting it on trial (they wished) so 'appointment' was a nicely neutral word.

"I may not go," Kaworu told him, opening his eyes but still leaning against Shinji. "If hatred is something the Lilim truly should work to overcome, then perhaps there is harm in me humoring them by hearing those words."

"There's harm to _you_," Shinji said, touching Kaworu's head. "If it made you this miserable, then tell them you won't go back until they stop wasting your time and start acting like adults. You have a country to run, don't you? And if you really could push the LCL out of places, that's something that you should work on, isn't it?"

Kaworu reluctantly detached himself from Shinji enough to look him in the eye. "Are you sure? I shouldn't run away from pain."

Shinji put his forehead in the palm of the hand Kaworu wasn't clinging onto like an affectionate limpet. "Sure, life is pain, but sane people _avoid _pain. You're the one who thinks you should be more like Lilim about this: well, Lilim don't just stand there and take crap like that, not if we can help it." And Shinji generally could, even if all he could do was avoid it.

"Then I will listen to you in this, Shinji," Kaworu said, nodding and resuming his place leaning against Shinji's side.

Shinji's father saw that Kensuke and Hikari were staring at his son, and Shinji was clearly assuming that it was because he was letting _Tabris _cuddle. The real reason was that Shinji was letting _anyone _cuddle with him in front of other people. Japan was a reserved culture whose people normally did not make public displays of affection, but Shinji had grown up with Misato using him as a teddy bear, and since it clearly helped the boy, Fuyutsuki had also made an effort to be demonstrative towards his stepson, within the bounds of propriety of course.

Then there was that damn Kaji boy, whose lack of personal space had led to him hanging off of just about everyone except Fuyutsuki himself, who had given him his best 'I have an army and you are sleeping with my daughter' glare.

When he had this confrontation with Kaji, he'd been able to threaten the young man with the fact that it wasn't just Fuyutsuki that would kill him: Misato was beloved of all the UN Forces, so if Kaji broke her heart, armies would be fighting over who got to kill him.

Tabris, though, _already _had the entire free world out to kill him, so there wasn't much that Fuyutsuki could threaten him with. He couldn't even have the satisfaction of making the damn young man miserable when he was _already _miserable.

In fact, at the moment, he'd prefer it if Tabris was _less _miserable, so Shinji didn't feel compelled to let the abomination glue itself to him even with Fuyutsuki _right there_.

At least Tabris looked content with just this, so its human-style (Lilim, technically) sex drive might not be as strong as the average teenage boy's, but Shinji was a normal teenage boy. Misato was Shinji's other parental figure, too, so there was, frankly, no way in hell that Shinji wasn't tapping that. Not when he'd spent the night at the embassy that time, although it wasn't like being under Fuyutsuki's roof had restrained Misato, Kaji and Ritsuko.

He thought to himself, annoyed, that this might actually be one of the best arguments at his disposal for getting the UN to stop thinking about past grievances and focus on the future, a future that required they either use or destroy the last-born of Adam, not just rant at it. Just point out to them that all they were really accomplishing were helping the damn thing get laid. Since Shinji was a target of unfair persecution since he was a child, he could remind them, this was just making their pilot feel even more sympathy for the abomination. Pushing him towards Tabris' side emotionally, when they needed him to stay in their corner, needed to make use of the hold he had over Tabris.

Wasn't this just proof that Shinji had influence already, if Tabris was playing hooky from the UN tomorrow because of him?

The bitter truth was that they needed SEELE's creation and the territory he controlled more than it needed the rest of the world. They had anywhere from two hundred years to a handful of decades before that territory became the last arable land on earth, advancements in hydroponics aside. It would be poetic to force the same power that devastated earth to restore it, but Tabris had the option of simply outliving the rest of them. Over the long term, it _would _win because there would be no more Lilim left to fight it for control of the world. Lilim _or _Children of Armisael, it didn't matter: they were identical except for their souls, and all of them required a world with a biosphere that could support children of a black seed.

If only he'd been able to find out more about Tabris, if only he'd managed to come up with some plan for securing it along with Misato. At least he'd managed to make sure UN troops got there before it leaked and they silenced her, but Tabris had been a secret of secrets. He'd heard that it was Adam reborn, assumed that it would be a hostile like the other angels, but years later, when Rei fell into their hands?

Or rather was placed there, for her own safety, by the abomination they'd assumed was an enemy of all Lilim, with its playful mockery of a child's demeanor.

Rei with her shyness, and innocence: she was everything Yui Ikari had pretended to be. Maybe she was the Yui Ikari Gendo'd fallen in love with: had he ever admitted to himself what Fuyutsuki finally had? Faced the fact that behind that cheerful smile was a cheerful, manipulative viper? Had he gone to his death still thinking that she loved him?

He sighed. "Since the alternative is…" Tabris leaning against Shinji and talking about feelings, "I suppose shop talk is acceptable _for tonight, Shinji_. And don't tell Misato." He waved a finger at the boy, who nodded, totally understanding. "Naoko and I are working on a proposal to remove Armisael's soul from her body and store her body in Terminal Dogma along with Lilith's and Adam's."

"Separating the seed's soul and body." Two of the three components necessary for Third Impact. Yes: 'defusing' Armisael and placing her in a Lilim-like body could help the situation. Right now, all Armisael needed to cause Third Impact was another angel's soul, and the planet was full of billions of Lilim. "SEELE didn't use all of Rei's clones for their Evas: I haven't decided what to do with the rest of them yet," Tabris said thoughtfully. "Would you like one? They were designed for Lilith's soul, but they should be able to contain Armisael's." Another Black Seed.

"That might be helpful. Even with the information Kaji sent us on how that man," Gendo Ikari, "created Rei and managed to pull Lilith's soul into that body," from so far away, "that took years of lead time and specialized equipment that make it impractical in this case." They didn't have five years. "The other successful case where a seed's soul was extracted in its body and placed in a humanoid vessel…" Was Tabris himself.

Created by raping Adam, and he wouldn't have talked about it that way earlier if it didn't bother him.

Kozo was right: the abomination's face was even paler than before, so revolted by the idea that he was almost green, so he went on, "She isn't as powerful as Adam was, so if we retrieved the Lance of Longinius, and used the Evas to contain most of the blast… Of course, the operation would have to take place at the South Pole." Where there was nothing for thousands of kilometers that hadn't already been destroyed.

"That… should not be necessary," Tabris managed to say, and if there was a hint of pleading in those eyes? "Armisael is an encroachment type. She should be able to download her soul into an empty vessel without any danger to anyone." No need to risk another Rapture. No need to rape anyone.

"That's Dr. Sohryu's theory," the professor agreed. "The trouble was finding an _empty_ vessel without using Armisael herself to create it." The way Adam was forced to create Tabris. Letting a human, even a criminal, have their mind and soul overwritten by an abomination's? Recreating the events that caused the Rapture would have been a tough sell, but with that as the alternative?

"I will bring you one tomorrow, with their life support equipment," Tabris promised hurriedly.

Fuyutsuki hid his smile behind a cough, because Shinji was glaring at him as it was. As much as the professor despised Gendo Ikari, he had to admit that he was very good at getting things done. Normally Fuyutsuki drew the line at deliberately traumatizing children in order to make things happen, but it looked like he'd finally managed to put the fear of God, or at least the fear of his lover's father, into Tabris.

Good.

If Fuyutsuki was willing to even contemplate doing that to Armisael, then what _would _he do if he got his hands on Tabris? If Tabris _ever_ hurt Shinji like that again? The boy had damn near been a zombie after he'd discovered that Kaworu, that his only friend, was one of _them_. Even if Fuyutsuki hadn't spent the years after Second Impact tending to the survivors until Yui Ikari decided that he'd be useful, he'd want to make the abomination suffer for that alone.

Perhaps it was unfair to blame Tabris for Second Impact, even if he did share Adam's soul, but if he'd thought this disguising thing through then he must have thought of what it would do to Shinji if he realized that Kaworu had been deceiving him all along. He'd knowingly risked breaking Shinji's heart, and even if Shinji had forgiven him for it? Too damn many people had hurt Shinji already.

Perhaps he'd even put it off the entire idea of sex so nothing more than cuddling would happen tonight, but after years of living with Misato he doubted he'd be so lucky.

* * *

_Another bit of the long resolution._


	21. Drunk With Fire

_I marked this fic complete since I actually did finish the original intended plot. Unfortunately, or fortunately if you actually like the products of it, after leaving me alone for a bit the muses returned. _

_Resulting in a lot of peeks at the aftermath. _

_I'm not treating this as a plotline with a defined end, and there really isn't going to be a resolution because winning the peace is a lot harder than winning the war. I could do a distant epilogue, but other than that?_

_Especially when there's a war of survival going on too, and what could be referred to as a religious war in terms of the fanatic hatred involved simmering under the surface, breaking out in random or semi-random acts of violence. Billions died in Second Impact, and the survivors bear wounds that really aren't going to heal until they're dead, especially given Evangelion's approach to losing loved ones. It's going to take this a long time to fade from living memory, and until then even an Enemy Mine to deal with the LCL isn't going to get more than teeth-clenched teamwork at best out of the UN and SEELE _populations_. _

'_Using something like that in order to survive' – think about what Misato says about the Evas, and she doesn't quite know the full extent of it yet. While this 'verse's governments basically have to do full disclosure, since trust in the UN was ruined by how thoroughly it was penetrated by SEELE._

_Despite my intentions there actually are a few plot threads running through this, and I dropped a hint that something other than inevitable stress was affecting Kaworu's mental balance._

_Even though Kaworu's physical body is like Shinji's, his mental wiring and the method of reproduction he's _supposed _to be using are not. At all. _

* * *

After what happened, or didn't happen, the last time they had sex Shinji honestly hadn't intended to try it again until Kaworu went over what he knew and there was some chance that it would work this time.

Then they went to his bedroom, and Kaworu was the one to start taking his clothes off, hurting and _needing _this, needing Shinji and here they were again, with Kaworu hot and flushed and _whimpering _with need.

Shinji was a little shocked with how much he knew about sex: he thought he'd managed to tune Kaji out more successfully than _this_, but apparently not. Quite a lot had managed to sink in, despite his groaning, and it wasn't like Shinji didn't know how it worked since he had one himself.

Last time, he'd asked Kaworu, "Well, how _do _you get off?"

Kaworu's answer was, "I haven't done this before. I know that Lilim feel lust, and their bodies have reactions to things, but mine never did."

Never? Absolutely never? Sometimes, it really was hard to believe that Kaworu was human.

Shinji might have felt flattered that Kaworu wanted to do this with him when he'd never even had to take care of himself before, except that hadn't helped solve the problem.

In the end they'd had to give up, and Shinji had to try to go to sleep with Kaworu lying next to him, panting for breath as he fought for control, trying to will himself to calm down. He'd seemed fine the next morning, but Shinji was the first one into the bathroom for a reason. Nothing else could have kept him from reacting when Kaworu put his head in his lap like that. When he stood there, naked and beautiful and without shame or the desire to hide. Just the desire for Shinji to be with him, and he would have gone through hell, would have fought the other abominations all over again to fulfill that wish.

Just like he couldn't say no to him tonight and now they lay here, Shinji's hands cupping Kaworu's face and looking down at those red eyes almost pleadingly because Kaworu looked like he was in pain and Shinji didn't know what to do.

"I, I…" So hard for Kaworu to speak, panting for breath he technically didn't need. "_I want to be one with you_," Kaworu finally managed to say, eyes glowing with a soft light that didn't match the intensity of his voice, the longing there.

Something bloomed on the pale skin of Kaworu's chest.

A pale gray light, the light of his AT field, of his soul, twisted and rippled there, finally unfolding to reveal brilliant living red, a gem with a fire at its heart. A light that had to be Kaworu's core.

Piles of reports Kaji had forwarded to him (because Shinji was the one who was going to be fighting Tabris, so he had a right to know what they knew) flashed through his mind. To kill an angel you had to smash their core, and they hadn't been able to find where Kaworu kept his. Obviously it had to be smaller than that of most angels in order to even fit in a human body…

Except it didn't. Not when Kaworu's AT field was strong enough to affect even light: if that other angel could distort space then shouldn't the seeds be able to do that, when they were made to travel between the stars?

Not that Shinji could think of any of that until afterwards.

At the moment his mind was too busy screaming at him _don't touch it_, because this was Kaworu's vulnerability and he was prophesized to kill Kaworu and he'd rather die himself, if it came to that. Shinji had already done his part, with the Eva piloting. The world didn't need him to survive anymore. Kaworu was a much better person than Shinji was, so if Shinji died and entrusted his precious people to Kaworu they'd be much safer than if it went the other way around. It wasn't like Shinji could protect an entire country from his own government.

What the paranoid part of him noticed was that touching it seemed like far too much of a good idea, and why was he leaning forward when he _knew _he shouldn't do this? He was being _compelled _to touch it, and that couldn't possibly be good. Shinji knew he had damn good self-control, good enough to resist moving even now that he was buried in Kaworu, and yet right now he couldn't do anything but lean down towards that patch of glowing red on Kaworu's chest, mouth opening slightly because just touching it with his hands didn't feel like _enough. _He wanted to bury himself in that light, let it fill all of his senses until everything was Kaworu, until everything ceased to exist but that blissful perfection…

Everything went white.

* * *

When he could think again, Kaworu was lying there under him. Despite what happened Shinji knew that Kaworu was fine, just asleep, because a second ago he _was _Kaworu.

There were only echoes of it left now, fragments fading from his mind just like a dream.

'_The reaction wasn't sustainable_' was one of those fragments that he caught in his mental fingers and tried to hold on to, just relieved that the emotion associated with it was relief, not regret.

Relief that without Adam's body, without the organs and mechanisms of the body of a Seed, the union of a seed's soul and an angel's couldn't trigger Third Impact.

"_We merged… because both of us were open. There wasn't an anti-AT field_." Nothing that would break into anyone's minds, destroy their ego barriers and force them into the merge.

His tired mind was convinced that no, they hadn't caused Third Impact, but now that Shinji was Shinji again he blinked tiredly a few times before noticing that right, his sheets were still there. Third Impact was supposed to turn all the organic matter on earth into LCL. His sheets were cotton, which came from plants, therefore that hadn't happened. And if they'd caused a panic over at NERV, Misato would have ordered armed guards in here. Even if he/they had vaporized the first set, or something (Shinji was pretty sure they hadn't, but he couldn't trust himself at the moment) then Rei, Asuka and their Evas would let them know shortly by knocking the roof in, so there really wasn't any reason to not just go to sleep.

After nudging Kaworu two, three times until Kaworu managed to blink up at him sleepily, just to make sure he really was fine.

* * *

When Shinji woke up a second time, he threw on exercise clothes and made a beeline for the room with the coffee machine before swinging back into his wing to check on Touji and his sister, since he knew where they were. Dad was hopefully at work already and the staff tried to be unobtrusive, so that should be the quickest way to make sure that he hadn't wiped out human life on earth. It just took a glance through his bedroom window to verify that the trees were still there – the trees that covered that window were the only reason he could have it, because snipers.

He opened the door to see Hikari and Kensuke in there, and then just sort of nodded at them and closed it again, because he wasn't going to say, "Just checking to make sure I didn't cause the end of the world."

Blearily he wondered if he was taking after his parents or something, and if he should be more concerned about his moral fiber or whatever since he had done something that would have ended the world if they were in an Eva at the time, but since the two beta-type pilots weren't aware that anything significant had happened, they should be fine.

Having sex in an Eva? _Eww_. That meant either his genetic mother, Asuka's mom or Naoko would be watching and _eww. _Shinji liked Naoko, and when he was younger he'd taken her flirting with his Dad from the Eva more seriously than he really should have. That made her marginally worse than his genetic mother, since she was actually someone he'd been willing to have as his mother, he guessed?

Coffee. Breakfast. Kaworu.

_Not _telling anyone the details of what happened last night, because what they didn't know they couldn't yell at him about.

Right.

* * *

Kaworu was still lying there being beautiful when Shinji got back with a tray full of breakfast and two cups of coffee. Normally it didn't take him this long to wake up: he hoped this wasn't a side effect of last night.

Glancing at the clock, he was relieved to discover it was only a little after 6AM. Phew, he'd just lost track of time, that was all. That made him wonder what Hikari and Kensuke were doing in Touji's room this early, but then again, perhaps they'd felt there was safety in numbers, or wanted to be there in case Kaworu snuck in during the night to heal them without asking first or something.

When he turned back to the bed, he was a bit startled to find that Kaworu's eyes were open, watching him with a fond smile. "I felt you looking at me," Kaworu explained.

"Is it just me?" Shinji asked, sitting down on the bed. If Kaworu knew the light of Shinji's soul well enough to mimic it so that lock would only respond to Shinji, than had he woken up because he recognized Shinji, or was it something else?

The angel shook his head. "I can tell when any Lilim is watching me. It's the lights of your souls."

"That's handy." _Shinji _wanted that power.

Kaworu shrugged a little, then stretched. "All of you possess that sense to some degree, it's just a matter of sensitivity."

"I have to find out what else you can do, without encroaching on people," Shinji said to himself. "And if there's any way to train that…" As an Eva pilot, he should have more sensitivity to AT fields and that sort of thing than most people. He knew the sensation of someone watching him, and he'd never been wrong when he felt that way, but if he could improve that sense? "Not now, though. About what happened last night?" Was Kaworu okay with talking about it?

"We lowered our AT fields instead of dissolving them by force with an anti-AT field," Kaworu said, pushing himself up a bit to lean against the head of the bed, chest still bare. "NERV's equipment doesn't register AT fields under a certain level. Otherwise, it would be blinded by the fields of all the Lilim in Tokyo-3. They couldn't have detected fields that were already low decreasing in strength."

"What they won't know won't hurt them, will it?" Shinji asked, because otherwise?

"As long as we avoid the bodies of Adam, Lilith and Armisael, it should be fine," Kaworu told him. "This body," he indicated his own, languidly stretching in Shinji's bed in a way that made the brown-haired ex-pilot swallow, "isn't built to create the necessary resonance – SEELE planned to use half of Lilith's original body, the half without the brain, and a dozen Evas. Neither of us has the equipment," due to hanging out with normal teenage boys Kaworu realized he'd made an accidental pun, but didn't point it out to Shinji by apologizing for it, "to make our merge cause Third Impact. That's why the Gr-Why your father intends to separate Armisael from her body." Kaworu shuddered a little at the thought of that conversation, of the Lilim doing that to another seed. "I should bring him one of the empty vessels," right away, so he didn't do anything else to Tabris' older sister first, "and then perhaps we might practice, or…" The grey angel looked thoughtful. "Shinji?"

"Yeah?" Practicing their music sounded good, if that was what Kaworu was asking.

"I think that after last night, after being one with you… I think I could bear anything now." Kaworu smiled, that serene angelic smile, and now it seemed real. "Something in me has calmed. Before, I felt almost desperate. As though if I didn't do something, didn't bring about Third Impact _soon_, all of you would die and be lost to me. I knew that I must wait, that these things take time, and yet I felt something pushing at me. Pushing me towards you, to be one with you. I think it may have been that force which drove me here last night. Now, I feel calm. As though I have everything I need, once again." He laughed, shaking his head. "I've been told about puberty and hormones, but to think that all of that might have been just my body wanting something? I really do need to work on my self-control." It really must be inferior to that of the Lilim, who felt this way all the time and mostly didn't let it drive them to irritate others.

Shinji frowned, putting down his coffee cup. Was this really a laughing matter? "Wanting Third Impact?"

Kaworu blinked up at him. "I… suppose? I knew that the prophecies stated that the others would be driven to reach Adam or Lilith, but Armisael was persuaded to another course so easily… Ah, of course. Both Armisael and I are seeds, not ordinary angels. She realized that what she truly wanted was a companion." Like Kaworu wanted Shinji. "Does she desire this with Kyoko Sohryu?" Kaworu wondered now. "That wouldn't be safe until she is removed from her original body… But then would it really be safe afterwards, when Kyoko's soul is in an Eva?" Unit 02 was made from the flesh of Adam, so removing Armisael's flesh from the equation wouldn't be enough. "Unless they were both placed within vessels. The dummy plug clones were meant to connect to the Evas: perhaps I should bring three of them. The UN won't allow the souls of the Evas to be removed from them, not when they believe you still might have to fight me, and Armisael, but… Hmm. Both of their souls are Lilim: being in two places at once shouldn't be taxing for them."

"That might be nice." Asuka would certainly be happy if her mother could spend more time with her. Briefly, Shinji wondered what Naoko would think of looking like her granddaughter, since these were clones of Rei. She'd probably be in favor of it: family resemblance, after all.

"After that, do you mind if I go to the UN?" Kaworu asked him. "I know that I told you that I wouldn't, but I feel better now. I'll be a little late, too." First the pickup and delivery to NERV, and then changing and getting ready.

Shinji hesitated. "Are you sure?" He didn't like to think of Kaworu sitting there while people tried to hurt him with their words.

He nodded. "But first… again, Shinji? Just to be certain, of course."

"Of course," Shinji agreed, rolling his eyes in answer to Kaworu's joke, because they both knew that wasn't the real reason. "If it means you won't cause Third Impact? It's a lot better than Eva piloting," he said as he pulled Kaworu away from the headboard, down onto the bed. "Did you know your core was hidden like that?"

* * *

Commander Fuyutsuki of NERV stared at the extra two Rei clones Tabris had deposited outside the geofront through NERV's monitors. Shinji had called to let them know that Tabris was en route with them, and what the extras were for, but _Naoko_ in a fourteen-year-old body that looked like _Yui_?

Briefly, he wondered if this was a plot to bribe him into giving his consent to Tabris having a relationship with Shinji or a plot to give him a heart attack and/or get him fired for what looked like pedophilia.

* * *

"Sometimes I wonder if you should have learned to play the fiddle," Shinji said once again as Kaworu spun out of sheer joy and energy, using the movement to his advantage instead of producing a terrible squawk from his violin.

"Perhaps I should. I have time, after all." Even if he was busier now, he would live forever. "Shall I learn the fiddle, and you the harp?"

"I was thinking bass guitar before the harp," Shinji told him, pleased Kaworu remembered that long-ago mention. "Rei's getting interested in more modern music."

"So my sister wants to learn the electric guitar?" Kaworu looked thoughtful. "I've kept up with the piano more than you have, so that's the keyboard covered. Would Asuka insist on playing electric guitar as well, or could she be tempted into playing the drums?"

Shinji couldn't help smiling. "Well, she does like hitting things…" On a more serious note, "How did today go?"

"Much better than yesterday. I thought I wasn't called to join with Adam either because Armisael still lived or because I'm half-Lilim, but now I think that you were right. That the call was acting on me subconsciously. Making me agitated. It's much easier to mentally center myself now, while before it was impossible for me to keep words like that from knocking me off-balance," Kaworu said, sitting down finally and looking through the sheet music he'd left on the stand, considering what to play. "After all, there's no need for instinct to drive me to merge with an angel when I've already done that."

Shinji found himself leaning over, smiling like a fool. "Just let me know," he said, touching Kaworu's silver hair. Any time. "As long as you're okay now."

"I'm with you," Kaworu told him, touched by Shinji's willingness to tug so gently on hair that no longer appeared ordinary, human black. "I'll even let you pick the songs." Instead of asking for Ode to Joy. "I don't think I need to insist on a few cheerful pieces for the sake of either of us today." Before he'd felt the need to lighten Shinji's generally-dark mood, but now? "You smile more now that you don't need to pilot anymore. I'm glad that I buried her in the depths."

"I am too," Shinji told him. "Being inside her… I don't want her anywhere near me, ever again." Hell no. "Judging by Misato, only five or so more years until I'm too old to pilot anyway."

"Someone who would hurt you like that has no right to inhabit Lilith's flesh," Kaworu said darkly, "but I won't give one of those bodies to her. The face they wear is my little sister's, not hers. I do not care what Gendo Ikari intended."

Kaworu was gentle. Kaworu was kind, and had barely killed anyone despite his power and the amount of fights he'd been in. Kaworu clearly wanted to murder Yui Ikari. Because of Shinji.

He coughed, trying to cover his sudden squishyness and remembering Naoko punching Gendo into a wall right in front of him. Sometimes, he really did think he had the best family. And Kaworu. "Let's just practice, okay?" He hoped Kaworu was finding time to practice even when he wasn't with Shinji. Going without practicing for all those months after Kaworu left with Kaji had forced Shinji to spend a lot of time just getting back into condition, getting caught up to where he used to be, and he didn't want Kaworu to lose any of his skill.

"The chief of my guard plays the guitar," Kaworu told him, getting back on the subject of instruments. "I've only heard him play a normal one, but perhaps he knows how to play the electric guitar as well."

The guitar? "What does he play?" Shinji asked.

"Folksongs. I like folksongs," Kaworu told him reprovingly when Shinji stopped just short of rolling his eyes, because that just screamed 'trying to seem romantic in order to pick up chicks.' "I asked him to sing them for me often when I couldn't see you, or play while I sang." He smiled. "It may be my fault he knows so many folksongs: as a child I was very excited to meet someone who liked them. He's always been too respectful to be anything like you, Shinji," so Shinji didn't have competition for the position of Kaworu's first friend, "but I want you two to meet while he's here in Japan. He and two more of his men have been my honor guard when I visited the UN, although it's been very hard for him to restrain himself." From speaking out of turn when they were insulting Tabris: how dare they speak that way about His Holiness!

About a child who liked music and other human things, who cared so much about people and tried so hard to help them.

"He's a little young for the post," Tabris acknowledged, "but I didn't feel right keeping the first guards they assigned me, the older officers, not when I don't really need protection and Refuge's people needed protectors. And a police force. He's close to Misato's age: I confess I actually pounced on him when I heard him playing for some of the other refugees around a campfire. That was in the first year Refuge started accepting outsiders: he was one of those who didn't quite have a choice about coming," many of them hadn't, when witch hunts made it death to stay where they were, "because his parents brought him with them. I startled him so badly he tried to hit me with his guitar, and then I owed him a new guitar." He laughed a little, playing a melody Shinji didn't recognize. It might be a variation on some folk song, for all he knew.

Shinji could certainly imagine that scene. Kaworu ignoring that someone had tried to club his head in and looking adorably sad at the poor instrument, and then dragging the poor guy off, insisting that they go find someone to give him a new instrument because it was Kaworu's fault, even if it was the other guy who tried to hurt him. Kaworu's fault for being an abomination, for wanting to be with people.

"You want me to go to the embassy sometime while he's here and meet him? It's fair: you met my family," Shinji told Kaworu.

"You've already met my family. The side of it that I know." Met them and killed them, except for Armisael. Kaworu called Rei his sister, but that was really wistful thinking.

"You don't know where your human genes come from either?" That surprised Shinji. Shouldn't SEELE have known?

"Before I didn't, but I know now," because of eating Keel. "The genes were taken from a preserved specimen found with the Dead Sea Scrolls," Kaworu explained. "It would take DNA testing to find any living relatives of mine, and I'd rather not do that to them." After so long, he could be related to who knew how many thousands who didn't deserve to be targeted.

"Well, that was… mystic of them." Better than Kaworu being related to any of _them_.

"There were high amounts of contamination present in the sample. He was probably the Lilim who had the visions recorded in the Secret Dead Sea Scrolls," Kaworu told Shinji, looking at the one patch of sky visible from inside the music room. "So I am the child of both Adam, who destroyed most of your world, and the one responsible for the prophecies your father by choice so hates."

"I don't care." Shinji told him, since Kaworu might need to hear it. "Do you mind if I tell anyone about that, though? At least it's better than being the son of Keel or any of the others."

Kaworu shrugged, but his aimless playing shifted again, to a minor key. "SEELE preferred that I not consider myself or be considered the child of _any _single Lilim, even the prophet. They considered injecting Adam with a selection of ideal Lilim DNA from several donors – no X chromosomes, of course – but the high contamination level of the sample, how some of the cells in there were even able to revive when rehydrated? That was what convinced them. Truly, I wasn't as important to the high council as they wanted the rest of the world and their underlings to believe. They wanted Lilim to achieve godhood with their own hands, not mine. Yet those sent on the Katsuragi Expedition had to believe that they were dying for a great cause. Not just preventing Adam from awakening and killing all of you, but creating a young god, creating a prototype for humanity's evolution, creating something that would be more than human. Keel revived those lies later." To convince others that Second Impact wasn't quite so horrible a thing: look, something great had come of it!

"You mean your Lilim father was immortal?" What?

"…'Immortal' can mean several different things, but no. Like the HeLa cells, that can divide infinitely. A trace of the gift of the tree of life in the offshoots of the tree of knowledge. Didn't Ritsuko tell you that you healed faster and more completely than Lilim normally do, even at your age?" Kaworu thought Dr. Akagi would have been honest with him, when she was the one who took in Kaworu's sister.

"…Yeah," Shinji forced himself to admit, looking away when Kaworu turned back to look at him. "I… My parents probably deliberately contaminated me. The Katsuragi Expedition: they went on it, even if they left before the others did it." Set off the Rapture, did that horrible thing to Kaworu's father, or mother technically. "I used to have nightmares about turning into an abomination. So yeah, Ritsuko told me how bad… I mean, how good it was, that I could heal fast, because I was needed as a pilot and it's not like I want to be crippled or anything." He saw Kaworu putting his violin down on the edge of his vision, his friend coming over to put a hand on his shoulder, and maybe he did like Kaworu's bare hands just fine. "I trusted her to tell me how bad it was: if she didn't, then I would have had to wonder how much she was holding back, if she was hiding that there was a reason I healed a lot faster than Touji. I don't think I can regrow legs or anything, but I haven't even needed any physical therapy. And my hands got burned that time, and… I would have lost some of my ability to play if I wasn't contaminated." Damage to his hands, arms, nervous system. "It's not that I hate it, I just don't want to be grateful to my parents for it." He hated _them_, not Kaworu: Kaworu understood that, right?

His fingernails were almost cutting into his palms, he'd clenched his fists so tight. Not out of anger, but because it was that hard to talk about it. Like biting a bullet.

He wasn't surprised that Kaworu took his hands to remind Shinji that he was here, or that Kaworu gently pulled them open, because he'd hate the idea of Shinji hurting himself. Of anger and aggression invading this space, or maybe that was Shinji's issue. Why he couldn't stand having Asuka in here, trying to pick fights and criticize him when he was trying to _not _be angry.

Feeling a brief press of lips to one of his hands was a bit of a surprise and he found himself blushing as Kaworu did it again, and again. Those kisses were for the reddened areas where Shinji had almost hurt himself. It was something that you did to girls, but Shinji did it for Kaworu, to try to make him feel better, and he didn't really mind it. Kaworu's breath was warm, those lips were gentle and the moment hummed with the promise of eternal devotion. That Kaworu's love for him wasn't something fleeting but something real, something that radiated out in the form of little things like this, and Kaworu would love him forever because he would never die. Shinji could always have this, and he had to blink because otherwise he'd have to try to convince Kaworu that there was something in his eye, because if Shinji's eyes got watery Kaworu would worry that Shinji was crying because he was sad.

Oh, so this was why love was supposed to be like getting shot through the heart.

_I really love him_, Shinji realized, or was that admitted? _I really would do anything for him. To make him stay the way he is now – No, even if he changed. This is… How can I live without this_?

There was an arrow lodged in his heart, and pulling it out would let all the blood pour out of him: yes, that was what had happened to him. The intensity of it was painful, but was it really that it was painful or that it was terrifying? Was some part of him screaming that he would die if he lost this? The intensity, the amount, the depth the emotion had penetrated inside him: all of it was too much. If anything went wrong it would hurt so much.

Yet it was so _perfect_. No lies, no deceptions between them. They'd been _one _for some eternal precious moments. Even if Shinji didn't want to stay that way, since that meant no more Shinji and no more Kaworu, that born from them both had possessed Kaworu's love for Shinji and Shinji's love for Kaworu, so much that it still made it impossible for Shinji to hate himself. He knew, beyond any doubt, that Kaworu truly knew him, truly accepted him, truly looked at him and saw _Shinji_.

That was what made it dangerous: that love and the joy born of it had boiled up inside them and tried to engulf the entire world. It _would _have devoured the entire world if it could, because in that moment they were everything and they loved everything. It/they would have embraced the entire world, but could they have managed to let go while the process could still be reversed?

The hairs on the back of his neck suddenly prickled: Yes, they were being observed. "What is it?" he said, trying not to sound cross. "Oh." It was Hikari, with Kensuke standing slightly behind her, watchful even without his camera.

* * *

_I didn't want to make the drive to merge as severe/inevitable as anime Kaworu implied it was when he asked Shinji to kill him before it kicked in because that would be an instant downer ending, either Kaworu losing control or Shinji having to kill him to keep him from losing control and heading for Terminal Dogma. _

_When this is supposed to be a 'what if things went differently' fic, it is kind of cheating to give Kaworu much less evil psychological programming, but if he stays alive he has to deal with politics and that Lilim hatred and all kinds of things he wouldn't have to if he was dead, so it balances out._

_Still, I like my science fiction and it's interesting to think of the design of it all. Even though we humans put a lot of work into resisting our instincts because our instincts do things like assume we're as violent as all the other mammals they're still _there_, so what effects would a different set of programmed drives have on human-based intelligences?_

_Since the angels are human-based, with the vast majority of the same DNA, it makes sense to map the already-existing reproductive drive to the… Well, really, it's a reproductive drive. Salmon returning to their birthplace to spawn._

_Unlike the Lilim, who are probably fairly close to the baseline species since this is a panspermia project, intended to seed other planets with human life, Kaworu's soul type was not intended to be in a human-style body. Since he is in a… fairly normal human male teenage body and most sexual enjoyment is physical he can enjoy sexual contact, but he doesn't actually have a sex drive in this 'verse. It was completely overwritten and replaced by the merge drive._

_Attraction is mental, emotional and subconscious/instinctive (eg. scent lets us know the other person's immune system type) trigger-based, and when they were designing seeds and angels it makes sense that they'd mentally rewire them to make sure they did what they were designed to do. Seeds are supposed to lie there pinned to crosses except when they spawn or an angel merges with them to spawn. They're not supposed to leave and start using their godlike powers for their own benefit, including getting laid the conventional way._

_A lot of the mental conditioning that bothers Shinji in this fic is the result of being raised by SEELE, but even a Kaworu who has interacted with humanity for who knows how many cycles (Rebuild) is still going to be Conditioned To Accept Horror and not be able to understand why certain horrible things are bothering Shinji so much because yeah. The existence of seeds is a very horrible, And I Must Scream kind of thing, and they were supposed to be okay with this. You _do not want_ your manmade gods to realize that their existences are actually unfair and it's all the fault of the puny mortals who made them to suffer. As we see when Rei told Gendo to shove it and went to be with Shinji instead, that kind of thing tends to end apocalyptically. _


	22. Sickness and Health

"They aren't even awake," Kaworu said, dismayed.

Shinji gave Hikari a level look that said, 'I know that they've given the OK for Touji to be awake for longer. You bring us in here when _both _of them were on sedation and clearly the nurse is off-duty otherwise he'd be in here making it clear that Tabris is _not _allowed to be in here with his patients, and you think this is okay… why?'

"Are either of them authorized to give consent, even if they were?" Kaworu continued, unaware of Shinji's thoughts and simply sighing. "Their parents, or commanding officer in Touji's case."

"That would be me or Misato," Shinji told him. He was the senior Evangelion pilot since they'd been shoving him into his mother much longer than Asuka. Much longer than Rei, obviously.

That left all three of them looking at him hopefully. Kaworu clearly _wanted _to do this for them, but he aware of what it might mean for them.

"And under the specific laws governing Tokyo-3," which was a weird little special administrative zone, "Touji can give consent for his sister," Shinji added, wondering as soon as he said it if he would regret it. "I looked it up while you were at the UN." Since Kaworu wondered about healing them when he came over last night. "But when they're not even _awake_?"

"It's better for them if they don't agree, isn't it?" Hikari said, looking down at her hands when she couldn't endure Shinji's gaze any longer, not well enough to deceive him. "I meant to lie and tell you that they already had, and would rather be sedated while it happened." Than have to suffer the touch of an abomination while awake.

That was somewhat better than wanting Kaworu to take the heat, but Kaworu would be blamed _anyway_, Shinji knew, since people would assume he'd detected the lie. If he hadn't detected it? It might even be that they wanted to be sedated which convinced him, since wanting his help without wanting anything to do with him must be something he'd seen often before. And of course Hikari would feel shame, asking an abomination for help when she was an Eva pilot.

Shinji didn't say, 'Touji would be furious with you: this is his _baby sister _we are talking about,' because it was obvious Hikari knew that. In theory, it was fine that Kaworu take the other half of the heat for this, because people were going to assume things no matter what and it would be hard to make things worse, but even so. This was the kind of thing that Shinji wanted to try to protect him from, so he might as well start now. "Can we wake them up before the nurse gets back without Kaworu having to do it?"

"Let me see," Kaworu said, stepping past Hikari to pick up the chart at the foot of Touji's bed. "Actually sedating Lilim is dangerous, so it's not something good doctors take lightly. There's a note here about his contamination level and how that affects drug interactions…" Turning to another page, he looked disturbed. "Shinji?"

"What's wrong?"

"I know that I asked you to see if they would let me heal them before, but… Please." Please help convince them? "Bardiel… Pilot Suzuhara's body is trying to regenerate his legs, but he doesn't have that much ability to heal. Dr. Akagi is worried the cells trying to adapt and reproduce like that will give him leukemia just to start with if this continues. Bardiel encroached on the Evangelion, and the Evangelions are connected to the pilots, but Suzuhara is still a child of the black seed. His body can't do what it is trying to do. Cells seeking to heal, to reproduce eternally… Is that why he's spent so much time under sedation?" Kaworu started flipping through page after page, scanning them rapidly. "Yes, it's a directive from Dr. Akagi, but she didn't give her reason. At least part of it must be that when Pilot Suzuhara isn't awake, he isn't wishing that he would hurry up and get better." Recover enough to at least get out of the hospital bed, to start learning to use prosthetic legs or a wheelchair or whatever. "Trying to obey his wish to be well again, his body will destroy itself." Endlessly reproducing cancer cells going out of control and stealing resources from the rest of the body, since Touji had neither the genetic programming nor an angel's power to regrow something as complex as legs.

"What about her?" Shinji asked, tilting his head in the direction of Touji's sister.. He hadn't thought there was anything odd about the two of them being unconscious most of the time: Shinji hadn't needed to be, but he knew he was a freak. Still, the two of them should have high contamination levels, even if not as high as Shinji's, so should he have wondered about it, even if he didn't want to know anything about medicine?

Kaworu put Touji's chart down on the end of the bed and picked up his little sister's, turning the pages far too fast to actually be reading them. Done, he closed his eyes for a moment in concentration. "She's just slipping in and out of a coma."

_Just _slipping in and out of a coma? Well, better that than abomination-contaminated cells going out of control, but it was still weird to hear someone refer to comas with relief in their voice. When he opened his eyes again and saw Hikari's expression, he told her, "Otherwise, she would be addicted to painkillers by now, and still in a lot of pain whenever she was awake. There's a lot of internal damage, and it's kinder if she sleeps while she heals." That kind voice of reassurrance: for a moment it seemed as though Kaworu really should be wearing a robe instead of such an ordinary white dress shirt when he was acting so much like a doctor or priest or, well, Tabris.

It occurred to Shinji that he had a darkish blue bathrobe, not quite royal blue, from that time Ritsuko had gotten everyone bathrobes in their own colors for Christmas since Kaji kept stealing hers, but he had no idea how Kaworu would look in a color like that and it was fuzzy terrycloth anyway, so it would probably be even less appropriate than what Kaworu was wearing now.

"But a coma means she might never wake up." Hikari looked like she wasn't sure whether to be dismayed or angry. "They didn't tell Touji that… where does it say that?"

Kaworu opened the chart and handed it to her. "Her contamination level is high enough that she won't suffer any of the usual ill effects of comas," he told her in case that helped. "It won't debilitate her, but you're right: she might not wake up without help. It's very possible for an angel to be trapped in unconsciousness, and the contamination comes from Adam, who was designed for such a fate. Yet because of this it's still possible for her to recover completely."

"How do you know so much about medicine?" Aida asked, adjusting his glasses. "I mean, you can cure people, but is that really the same thing?"

"In the beginning it was just the laying on of hands," Kaworu told him, at little embarrassed, "but once Refuge got a little more organized, the doctors at the hospital wanted to be sure that I knew enough of what I was doing that I wasn't making anything worse, or overlooking other things that might be making them sick. I was also a very curious child, so I wanted to know what the Lilim did to try to preserve the lives of other Lilim."

"And you have access to everything on the unsecured public network." The internet. They would have shut it down, but the ability to coordinate resources was much of what let the world recover after Second Impact, and so many people relied on it for human contact – all the deaths of Second Impact had unhinged a _lot _of people. Moving to high mountain peaks and refusing to go down into lowlands for any reason was a relatively sane response.

Kaworu stared at him for a moment, which should have been more threatening coming from a red-eyed abomination except he just seemed surprised. "That's not a reliable source of information, especially medical. They told me that when I first hooked up to it. I wouldn't bet someone's life on the accuracy of information I just found there."

"You don't bet people's lives on information from untrustworthy sources? This, coming from the person who…" Kensuke started to say before he saw Shinji's expression. He shut his mouth, adjusting his glasses to cover the sudden nervousness.

"I know," Kaworu told him solemnly. "I know much more than you do about how I was used. What a fool I was, thinking that I would save all of you."

Like the Eva pilots.

A hand on the abomination's shoulder now, even though Shinji was a little shorter than him. Tabris closed his eyes. Yes, Kensuke had merely stated the truth. He had every right to do it, even if there wasn't any need to rub it in. "Would they see any difference between me encroaching on them to wake them up and to cure them?" he asked Shinji instead. Logically there was a great deal of difference: he'd have to shape LCL and affect various systems in order to replace limbs and sections of damaged organs, while removing certain chemicals from the bloodstream required encroachment, but not control over the Lilim body.

Shinji considered his options. "…Let's just get Ritsuko in on this," he decided. "That way, she can order them to do it for science and the opportunity to study how you control human bodies, and they'll be doing their duty instead of letting you bribe them into giving you control over them with healing." It wasn't like SEELE hadn't been using Tabris' ability to heal and undo aging to buy support for almost a decade now.

* * *

"It will have to wait," Ritsuko said into her cell phone's headset, standing in the airplane hanger they were using as Armisael and Unit 02's temporary living space, since they couldn't let an angel into NERV.

From Shinji's indrawn breath, she knew he wanted to argue with her, but then he let it out. "You need to focus on Armisael?"

"Yes," she said as she typed commands into the tablet she was using to control the dummy system tube Tabris had delivered the spare body in, glad Misato's little brother got it. "We need to extract her, and then verify that she really is extracted from her original body instead of just in two places at once before we can place the body into containment in Terminal Dogma along with Lilith." And what was left of Adam's. "I need to focus on this, and I can't credibly do a study on Tabris' abilities if I don't have any time to pull together," or build, "the necessary equipment or actually study any of the results. We've already had multiple bomb threats – they might not be able to destroy Armisael with them, but they can kill NERV staff and destroy the transfer equipment in order to set us back." Once Armisael's body was placed into Terminal Dogma (with the two remaining Evas there in order to make sure nothing happened) and nothing happened, the world would hopefully breathe a sigh of relief that the second-to-last abomination had been defused. That left Tabris.

Armisael's snuggly dragon draped all around Unit 02 was cute enough, especially with the confused blinking there'd been in the early days when she was still processing this entire hug concept. Hopefully once she could actually speak for herself that'd help the PR situation.

"How long?"

Ritsuko looked up at the hanger's grey ceiling. "And how would I know that? It's not _just _Armisael: since those idiots at NERV England let one of the researchers leak how to detect Armisael's kids, I need to do some kind of definitive study on them and exactly how they're different from Lilim _weeks _ago. Then there's the question of my mother potentially becoming a loli." Since the new bodies were, after all, fourteen. "Even though the fate of the world isn't actually riding on that one, some people think it does, and the best means of disposing of the Evas over the long-term would be to extract their souls and seal them in Terminal Dogma along with every other bit of the progenitors' bodies." Therefore it was more of a priority than one non-primary pilot and pilot dependent – that flesh was one of the three triggers necessary for Third Impact, and the easiest one to take out of circulation.

"I'll tell you what I can do: I'll see if anyone else wants to study this and pitch it to WHO. There certainly are people who want to study Tabris' effect on human bodies, even if they obviously won't believe this was a representative sample." Just because Tabris wasn't mind-controlling the two they had under observation, that was no proof he hadn't done nasty things to the ones back in Refuge. "Don't count on getting anyone cooperative, and I won't have time to vet whoever they propose for you and brow-beat them into someone less likely to be deliberately obstructionist." That was Kaji-type stuff, anyway.

"…And how am I supposed to take you trying to turn me into mini-Kaji _now?" _Shinji grumbled.

"The same way you should take Misato doing it. Now get into your target's confidence and get a ring on that," she advised him.

"Ritsuko, I'm not even fifteen yet."

"Yes, but the public seeing Tabris fall for you…" People ate up romance, especially romance that overcame odds and so on and so forth. Yes, in the wake of the Rapture 'traditional values' were something people clung to, but Ritsuko hadn't needed Kaji to point out to her that Tabris had generally been depicted in a somewhat feminized fashion – robes instead of pants, salvation and healing instead of focusing on his destructive power. That was how SEELE's PR side had angled it, and the UN had gone with at least that part of it because a lot of people found those who didn't present the way society said their gender should be presented creepy and that fit with the entire alien and threatening aura Tabris already had. Both the media and the UN were _trying _to scare people, after all. On general principles in the media's case, and because for a lot of people (no thanks to the media's scare tactics strengthening public hysteria) it was SEELE territory or death. So the UN had a vested interest in making defection as unappealing as possible.

When SEELE handed over most of Adam's remaining flesh, they found that both progenitors were genetically female. SEELE putting a female abomination's soul in a male body was the kind of weird and creepy thing that got talked about, so it had been common knowledge for years.

A mother protecting her children was a powerful, archetypical image. That was ninety percent of the reason they'd been able to get Rei accepted as an Eva pilot in the first place, not the fact they _needed _people who could sync like she could.

Well, "You're mini-Kaji," she told Shinji, "So you do the scheming about this. But NERV can't afford – humanity can't afford – for our hands to be tied on the issues of Rei, Armisael and the Evas because of public fear. That fear's been there this entire time, but until now everyone was working together to take down the angels and get vengeance on SEELE." Tabris might have given them what was left of the old men, and there might have been some satisfaction in seeing those drooling shells, but, "Now we're telling them they _can't _eliminate the threat of the angels?" Even if it was because they needed Armisael, and Tabris over the long term? "If your father and Misato weren't your father and Misato, they'd have been replaced already, Shinji."

"I know. People are already bringing up GEHIRN." How the first organization meant to study these things and protect the world from them had been betraying humanity and trying to cause Third Impact from the beginning. "Alright," Shinji said, and she knew he'd gotten the message. "Say hi to Rei for me."

"Call her yourself: it looks like I'll be bunking here… tomorrow morning." That sounded about right for when she'd need to crash next. "Instead of going back to NERV." Commuting time was wasted time. Ritsuko tried to push back the frizzy chestnut hair that had escaped the rubber bands that were all she'd had time to do with it. "Shinji… You had better not be self-sacrificing about this. If you don't really love him, he'll find out at some point, and there's a difference between us jumping on this because it's something you want that will let us save the world by making you happy and whoring out our little brother." He knew they wouldn't really do that to him, right?

Shinji sighed. "He's _right here_." So not the time to talk about it, but, "It's okay, Ritsuko."

"Good. So put a ring on that. Even if it falls apart after three years like most marriages," she told him, "that would be enough to get us over this hump. If the lunatics are protesting you and your wedding, that will distract them from the kids." Do it for the children. Including Rei, who as Ritsuko's daughter was explicitly more important to her than her sort-of brother-in-law.

"I suppose I might as well use my assassin-magnet powers for good," Shinji told her. "The monitoring equipment on them here… It's not exactly standard, is it?"

"I was with Misato helping fight Tabris for years: I know how he thinks."

In other words, yes, Ritsuko had anticipated that since they were in Shinji's home and important to him, Tabris would want to heal them since he was visiting anyway. Yes, there was stuff to record their brain waves and see if anything weird happened to them. They knew a lot more about how the abomination ability to affect human brains worked now thanks to Arael's attack on Asuka, even if that attack hadn't lasted very long before Kyoko went to town on the angel for trying to fuck with her daughter. Both Kyoko and Naoko were scientists, after all: they could analyze the data recorded by the systems in the Evas and upload their readings and conclusions to the Magi. Ritsuko might be building the equipment, but it was Dr. Kyoko Sohryu who was designing most of it, after her personal experience with being pulled into a different body, and would be in command during the transfer.

"Oh," Shinji realized. "Kaworu told me something earlier: the body of someone who was probably the prophet was found with the Secret Dead Sea Scrolls, and he had a high enough contamination level that some of his cells were still viable. That's where they got the DNA for Kaworu," but that was almost the least interesting part.

"Picking up broadcast data from Adam and Lilith… That was the theory," Ritsuko's theory, "but that high a contamination level?" How would someone in the Middle East have gotten it, with Lilith in Japan and Adam in Antarctica? "I want samples. And now that I've got something else to investigate," just how high a contamination level were they talking about here, for cells (even if they had to be cancer cells) to last that long? "I'm not going to have time for something that affects only two people anytime soon."

She knew him well enough that she could practically hear his nod: of course he could figure that out.

"Don't do anything newsworthy," with so much going on, even Tabris doing something to a (different) pilot in UN territory might not even rate a mention, "until we've successfully decanted Armisael. We want her looking adorably lost and lonely on every channel, you hear me?"

"Understood." He paused almost long enough for her to tell him to go away and let her work in peace before adding, "What about Rei?"

"Good idea, but talk to your father and Hyuga, they're handling the PR. Rei wouldn't mind appearing and endorsing Armisael for whatever that's worth: she loves the Reyvas." Which were technically Armisael's children, not Rei's. Or Lilith's. "If we play up that Rei is Lilith's incarnation, though…" The other side of that was that Tabris was Adam's incarnation. When Adam's fury killed most of the world and was slowly eating away at the rest of it. When Tabris and his country were trying to reach some degree of peace with the UN.

"Yes, Ritsuko." He _knew _that: that was why he'd hesitated to remind her of Rei. "He wants to help Armisael and her kids, so…" This might as well be a videophone, she could picture Shinji's half-shrug that clearly.

"Alright." Well, he could take it more than kids without physical AT fields and he was still Ritsuko's enemy, revelation that he really cared for her daughter and Misato's little brother or not. "Now, I need to get back to my science. Don't do half the things Misato would do."


	23. Relatively Ordinary

_Armisael is more articulate in the anime and manga, but in them she's cribbing from Rei's brain, just like Arael is cribbing from Asuka's. Or at least that's my headcanon: talking to people and getting them to feel what you want them to feel is _hard _and takes practice. Especially when Lilim should be better at thinking ahead and handling abstract concepts than angels (they got the immortality, we got the brains), beings with absolutely zero prior experience shouldn't be that good at mindrape unless they're cheating somehow._

_There's a scene in here that I really should have done as its own scene instead of a flashback (far more dramatic that way), but then I really shouldn't be working on this fic to begin with when I have other projects, the main plot's done and at this point all I'm really doing is yielding to my desires for Eva fic that actually addresses the worldbuilding/sci-fi of it all & Shinji/Kaworu fluff. As an actual scene this would be terrifying, but as a flashback I can focus on the warm fuzzies. _

_...Also, I didn't want to have to fight an uphill battle with my Shinji muse going. "Nope. Nope, this is not happening," because the scene would have been far more emotionally devastating and effective from his POV and he feels that he gets enough emotional devastation in canon. There are a lot of fics where I do try to be Original Flavor, but... Well._

_Sorry for posting this twice, but I got a PM that the chapter still wasn't up after twelve hours, and I checked and nope. Looked like the site was having a bug again, so I decided to try deleting and reposting._

* * *

"I was lonely?" she said haltingly, even though Shinji knew the problem was that she had a hard time parsing emotions instead of speaking Japanese or any other human language. The angelic ability to interface with systems was what made Eva construction possible in the first place, and why Tabris and Iruel could hack things that, in theory, would take more processing power to decrypt than actually could possibly exist in the universe. She still used simple sentences, had trouble with anything beyond simple concepts because she hadn't been able to understand anything but simple concepts before. Well, that would help, wouldn't it? Things that weren't very bright could be outmaneuvered no matter how powerful they were, so this would make Armisael seem like less of a threat. "The souls that were called all left me, and no one heard me when I called."

Not with Adam and Lilith's call drowning her out – they would have been in _trouble _if one of the other angels went after Armisael, when they had no idea where she'd been for all the years since Second Impact.

The broadcast was anything but live – that would be beyond stupid when they had no idea what Armisael was going to say – and the interviewer had been briefed thoroughly ahead of time on what topics were and were not okay. If Armisael was provoked or overwhelmed, they wouldn't be able to do the rest of the interview. Not being able to understand a lot meant she couldn't understand what not to do very well, forget _why_.

Frankly, Shinji was more worried about her as a threat now than he was when she was in her original body or he would be once she started becoming able to think ahead. Sudden access to an _imagination_? Armisael now had the ability to come up with random things, but none of the experience necessary to know which of those things were bad ideas. Coupled with more power than Rei had, although less than Kaworu did?

"So I wanted to find my mother. I felt that she was lonely and if we were one, then I would never be alone again."

Even though the two of them were clones Armisael looked very thin and frail next to Rei, whose body had developed outside of a tank and gotten actual exercise and training. That should help too, Shinji knew. Not just because looking weak and vulnerable made her look like less of a serious threat to humanity, but also because some warped people found that feminine, attractive, moe or whatever they called it.

Right now, Armisael looked like something that needed to be protected, not something that humanity needed the Evas to protect it against.

The waif went on, looking down at the hands she still couldn't use well enough to button anything, or even hold a pencil reliably enough to write. "I felt some of my mother in the place with the Evas, but her soul wasn't in them, just knowledge that said that she was here. So I came here to find her."

"Why did you ensoul the Evas?" it was Ritsuko that asked that.

"They were empty. They called for souls. I would have tried to become one with them, but I wanted to find my mother. She was calling for me, and they weren't." Armisael's children weren't. "Or I thought I heard her calling for me, I thought that she wanted to be one with me, but neither of them do. Just the, the flesh. The soul that is like me prefers hugs to oneness," Rei, "and Kyoko said that my mother's soul is also in a body that thinks, and he hasn't come to be one with me either."

Not that it was certain that Kaworu also preferred hugs, especially after tasting oneness, but Armisael wasn't up to understanding that yet and trying to explain it to her might produce funny ideas. Shinji wasn't looking forward to it, but it had to be done at some point.

"I wonder if I will ever get the chance to explain to her that it isn't that I hate her." Sitting in the TV room with Shinji and the small group of pilots, Kaworu shook his head. "I was afraid that she would hate me, because of how this body and this self were created. For now, I should avoid her so that she isn't tainted by association with me. Like Rei." And yet he still hated to see the pain and loneliness of others. He still wished to relieve them of it.

The interview continued. "Were you aware that it takes the souls of an angel and a seed, not a seed and a seed, to trigger Third Impact – to achieve the kind of oneness you're talking about? Or did you think that merging with Adam would still cause Third Impact?"

"No. You asked me that before. I came because I was lonely and I was called. I wanted to be with."

"I know, Armisael, but just because I know something doesn't mean he does_,"_ Ritsuko said, pointing to the interviewer. "Or you do. This is explaining things." Armisael was used to Ritsuko explaining things to her, right?

"That is hard. You think of so many things, and before Kyoko would let me download some of what she knew. I miss Kyoko." Armisael looked at Ritsuko hopefully.

"You don't feel lonely, right?" Ritsuko asked her. "Rei and I, and the souls you placed in the stolen Evas have been making sure you're not alone."

"Rei is kind, and I'm glad that even some of my children will be with me," unlike all the ones that became human and ignored her existence, "but I miss Kyoko. I feel empty now." Armisael wrapped her arms around herself and hung her head until Rei carefully pulled them away and touched Armisael's pale blue hair reassuringly.

See? I'm here.

The other abomination leaned against her side instead but still looked distressed, and Shinji acknowledged with a frown that this looked like what happened to Kaworu.

It was fine for him and Kaworu, but if Kyoko would even let Armisael do what made Kaworu feel better in the first place, doing it while Kyoko was still in Unit 02 _would _cause Third Impact. Unit 02 was flesh of Adam: the missing component of the apocalypse.

"You understand that if Kyoko's mind was broken into and merged with yours, there would be no more Kyoko?" Ritsuko prompted her.

A moment, and a nod, and, "I don't want to never feel Kyoko again." So Armisael would listen, not knowing that there was a way for them to merge and separate again. "But you said that if I was in this body, and let you take my body, then I could be with Kyoko. Before, I was with Kyoko all the time, and now I'm not."

"We're working on that," Ritsuko promised her. "And then you can spend all the time with Dr. Sohryu that you like without anyone getting hurt."

"It's hard to be happy or think of anything else when you're lonely," Rei said to her lookalike, the one who was like her. She spoke slowly, clearly trying to help the angel understand. As though Lilith, mother of humanity, spoke to a child. "But there are lots of people besides Dr. Sohryu. Dr. Akagi is the Lilim who is most important to me because she is my mother, but I like lots of other people. I stayed with Dr. Akagi all the time when I was new, after she rescued me, because I was scared of other people and scared of being alone. Once you aren't scared anymore, then it won't hurt to go away from Dr. Sohryu for awhile, in order to make more friends. I have lots of people that I like, and I'm not lonely when I'm with them. I don't remember being Lilith the way you remember being Armisael, but I think it must make her happy, to be with her children. It hurts when people are scared of me, but there are people who are very kind, and brave. It's not that we don't want you to be with Kyoko, but if you meet other people, then you can have lots of friends like Dr. Sohryu."

Kaworu put his hands together in front of him for a moment, a gesture of prayer. He hoped that Rei was right, that the Lilim of the UN territories would accept Armisael. It worried him: Rei being friendly towards another angel might make the Lilim think that she was a traitor, or never on their side to begin with.

Like Shinji. Rei was an angel placed into a humanoid form by SEELE, and Shinji was the son of the Ikaris. He could only hope.

The two of them looked almost identical save for Armisael's frailty and the simplicity of the clothes they'd put her in, while Rei had made an effort to dress up. His little sister looked beautiful, with a touch of the radiance that indicated she knew that.

He was glad for her, and glad he had helped even if he hadn't been able to do that much.

The Lilim often confused beauty with goodness: was that not a third of why he had been made SEELE's public face to begin with?

Yet even though Tabris had been fooled, many of the Lilim had seen through the lies they were using him to spread, would associate angelic beauty with deception as well as enmity. He hadn't meant that, but it was the reality.

He really should be in Refuge right now, or really anywhere but Tokyo-3. He didn't want to taint Armisael, his sister in that she was also born of Adam, by association. Yet Shinji thought that there wasn't any way to avoid that, so he might as well be here since he had already spoken to his own people about Armisael.

It wasn't as though he was ever out of contact with his people, not when he was threaded through Refuge's networks. He'd been a part of them from the beginning, in order to protect them against attacks from Dr. Naoko Akagi's Magi system. Attacks that certainly hadn't let up when she gave herself to the Eva: no, as she learned to control her lilim AT field they only became more effective. If Tabris hadn't guarded Refuge's systems himself, it would have been impossible to secure them against her.

Now that the Lilim knew he was visiting Shinji, it was alright to use portals to make his way here even though every detector on the face of the planet would go off if he accessed Dirac Space. He could be back home in an instant, and using the portals did make it easier to rescue the young children of Armisael from their attackers.

It was almost strange to be so open about his movements, to remind the Lilim of his presence and power by popping up all over the surface of their planet. He was worried that it would bother them, frighten them or rather remind them of the reasons they had to be frightened. Still, there was some virtue in honesty.

What Shinji said about 'creeping around under their noses?' That might be fine for Shinji, but Tabris didn't want to scare the Lilim.

He had better not say that aloud in front of Misato. She would likely have some choice comment to make about exactly who was frightened of who, likening him to a spider or another of the animals Lilim crushed in perceived self-defense.

Shinji was right: it hurt. It did hurt to be perceived as something cold-blooded and poisonous. It had frustrated him so as a child, when he wanted to warm the hearts of the Lilim.

The heart of his love was warm. His beloved Shinji had already reclaimed Tabris' hand, holding it in his and sitting tall after fearlessly pulling the abomination to lean against his side when they started to watch the broadcast. Kaworu felt the warmth of Shinji's body through the former pilot's thin white shirt. Even though both of them wore loosely-woven clothing there was still a bit of sweat where they touched, generated by the warmth of their bodies. Inevitable when they'd sat here like this for so long, in the heat of the eternal summer, even with the fans overhead.

He had squeezed Kaworu's hand once they sat like this, a signal that Kaworu had his permission to read Shinji's feelings. It was Shinji's idea to have such a signal, since it would disturb people if they talked about it in front of them.

Especially Touji, who had felt an angel within his Eva and his own body. Kaworu wouldn't have dared ask to taste Shinji's feelings if anyone else was present, not when the UN would have viewed Shinji with suspicion even if he refused, just because why would the abomination even think that Shinji would say yes to having his mind invaded, the mind which held classified information? Not that Tabris had ever read Shinji's actual thoughts or memories, but he knew the Lilim would think the worst, would assume he'd taken liberties.

If he was willing to reveal that he was trespassing inside Shinji's body, then what else was he doing, what was he keeping secret?

Yet Shinji wished to be able to grant Tabris comfort at times like this, and the angel felt that tightness in his chest again at the thought of his love's kindness.

Such a wonder Shinji was, his soul glimmering so brightly despite all the wounds it bore, all the flaws his parents had deliberately created in him with how they treated him. Yet those wounds, those scars: they had only taught him what it was to be wounded and scarred. Those two monsters had only succeeded in teaching him such compassion that it left Tabris humbled, awed and hungry.

So wonderful, so admirable, a precious star and he wished to take it in his hands, hold it up to be admired by all. Let it illuminate the entire world so everyone could taste of Shinji's kindness, and surely they would never be lonely again.

If he were to become one with Shinji, if he were to fill this world with their children and those children held only a _fraction _of Shinji's strength, that battered, enduring, soft light?

He felt the fluttering in his chest, he knew he _wanted _that, and if Shinji had not assured him that it was normal to think of sex this often? Normal to have to resist the desire to do things the object of one's desire might not want? Tabris had feared that he was a horrible person the first time he imagined causing Third Impact with Shinji and realized that part of him _wanted _this. If Shinji hadn't held him down and told him that it was _okay_, really? Told him that Lilim had feelings like that too sometimes and it didn't mean that there was evil in Tabris' heart, it didn't mean he was going to act on those wishes? That it didn't mean Shinji had to kill him then and there the way Tabris had begged him to with tears in those red eyes? To protect Shinji and all of the Lilim from being destroyed, Tabris might have, _would _have slain himself.

Kneeling there on Shinji's bed, he had woken the former pilot out of a sound sleep and pressed his beloved's weapon into his hands, pleading with him. To kill him, kill him _now_, before… Watching Shinji's trust in Kaworu (Kaworu wouldn't ask Shinji to do something so terrible unless there really was no other way…. Right?) war with his need for Kaworu to live, that selfish Lilim wish to hold on to what let them forget their loneliness behind those blue eyes until Tabris lost the Lilim art of words, part of the gift of the black seed, a gift he was never meant to possess, and pressed his body against Shinji's, reduced to fearful whimpers and coaxing kisses to Shinji's chin, this time pleading for him to end Tabris' existence instead of take pleasure from it, until Shinji managed to pin him and calm him down enough that Kaworu regained speech and could explain what was wrong, _why _he thought he needed to die.

Those pale (Lilim-pale, not angelic pallor) calloused hands in his silver hair, Shinji's kisses on his forehead and his soft, worried voice, talking just to try to give Kaworu something to anchor himself to, a trail of words that Kaworu could follow back to Shinji. Trying to wake him out of panic and wordless madness, back to human sanity.

Oh, how could Tabris not be willing to die for him a thousand thousand times over? Whether it be by offering his life up to Shinji or merging with him and becoming the foundation of Shinji's new world, how could he not long to offer him every honor and every power, every scrap of Tabris' stolen soul?

Well, if it was normal for Lilim to be constantly distracted by their desire to be one with another, then Tabris would just have to learn to deal with it. If they could avoid being incapacitated by it, if Misato could carry on a war instead of constantly stopping mid-battle to find some reasonably flat surface to embrace her companions on, then he would just have to learn how to do the same.

Even if Shinji kept _thinking _like this, looking at the screen and surely thinking about Armisael, Rei, their futures and their children.

Oh dear, he thought, smiling a little. Now Touji had joined Aida in staring at them instead of just glancing at them while mainly focused on the screen the way Horaki and the little one were.

He didn't need to read their emotions to anticipate that he was about to say, "Get a room, you two," in a disgruntled manner that was only half joking.

It was Shinji that caught the slipper Touji had idly kicked off his foot. Well, semi-idly. It wasn't solid enough to do any actual damage even if it weren't for Tabris' AT field, and he'd aimed it for their center of mass instead of Tabris' head. "This _is _my room," he reminded Touji. "One of them, anyway. There's another TV room, you know." Of course, Shinji being Shinji, he also knew that Asuka had banned Touji from 'her' (really Misato's) wing, just in case Touji was even thinking about doing anything with Asuka's friend in Asuka's bed.

Although Shinji was pretty sure Misato's large waterbed with nearby closet full of stuff Shinji wished he was still too young to know about would be much more tempting, Touji's rivalry with Asuka or no rivalry.

Shinji's rooms were in the Professor's half of the house. Fuyutsuki's idea of having a men's side for himself and Shinji and a woman's side for Misato and Ritsuko in order to avoid any suspicion of impropriety once Misato got older and Ritsuko moved in was ruined first by Misato continuing to grab little Shinji to drag him to her bed when she needed something to hug and then by Misato dragging Kaji home, but Misato had still liked the idea of having her own wing for her own branch of the little family.

Still, this TV room was one of Shinji's rooms. If they didn't want Kaworu here then, well, they couldn't leave, not when Intelligence had probably made it clear to them that they wanted reports on how Tabris acted that didn't come from Shinji.

Having Tabris over so often had to be reminding his father of Kaji, Shinji knew.

When killing Tabris had been Commander Fuyutsuki's actual job, or one-sixteenth of it anyway, for years then Shinji really shouldn't be encouraging those murderous feelings by having Tabris over in Shinji's bedroom with the door closed, as opposed to just the music room, so often.

Still, it was Shinji's job to save the world too! And a Kaworu who was warm, languid and afterglowy was an abomination who wasn't being driven to cause Third Impact.

Now that he thought about it, was he going to have to give some kind of talk about this to Rei?

Blue eyes glanced at Kensuke, who had turned back to the screen, or rather to Rei. He didn't exactly like the idea of informing one of the beta-type pilots that Shinji and Tabris had been, well, doing something that would have set off Third Impact if Kaworu's soul was in its original body.

He felt his cheeks heat up as he realized that no, he and Kaworu weren't actually using protection. Shinji knew he was a virgin and he was certainly willing to take Kaworu's word that he was too, and contamination level or no contamination level, it wasn't as though they needed to worry about ordinary pregnancy when both of them were in male bodies, but it wasn't exactly setting a good example when he was thinking about talking to his sort-of-niece's crush.

Actually, should Kaworu be the one to talk to Aida? Kaworu didn't have a very high intimidation factor, in Shinji's opinion, but _Tabris _certainly did, and Kaworu wanted to be Rei's big brother, right? While Shinji was just her sort of step-uncle or… something. So should he be the one to have a _word _with the person his little sister liked?

Rei was still stationed over at the Geofront, so Shinji realized that he should probably go over there to talk to her. It wasn't as though Tabris could go anywhere near the Geofront without the entire UN freaking out.

The problem was that Rei had never gotten up the courage to admit her feelings to Kensuke, even if Shinji was pretty sure Kensuke had figured it out. Aida not actually trying to escape Section 2 and run for the hills after he realized that the abomination had a crush on him was a good sign, actually.

"Shinji, I don't think you realize how much affection you are showing towards me," Kaworu said, and Shinji turned to see him smiling. "Your family is far more demonstrative than most Lilim. I am glad of it," both that Shinji was hugged so often and that he was so willing to hug, "but I think our behavior is more startling than you realize, since you're used to embracing friends, not just lovers." Ritsuko and Kaji, even if he wasn't as physically affectionate with Rei or Asuka because Rei was, well, and Asuka was too likely to take it the wrong way and call him a pervert or something, Shinji'd learned that quick.

"It's my house and you can rub my shoulders if I want you to," Shinji said, then realized it was technically his father's house, and he really shouldn't be all over Kaworu in front of his dad. Not when it bothered his dad and Shinji didn't want to make Professor Fuyutsuki worry about his son.

If Kaworu did have to die then Shinji would be heartbroken: they both knew that. It wasn't as though Shinji distancing himself from Kaworu would do any good. In fact, he'd practically been a zombie before the two of them reconciled.

He knew that he would really, really need his dad if anything happened to Kaworu, just like Misato had needed Kozo and Shinji after Kaji left and Shinji had been so upset about Kaworu that he'd utterly failed to be there for her. He felt like a horrible little brother for a moment, and it made him tighten his grip on Kaworu's hand when he felt Kaworu trying to slip it free.

So Kaworu only rubbed Shinji's shoulder with a single hand: he must have taken Shinji talking about the shoulder rub as a request, even though it hadn't really been one. Shinji had been referring to something that happened earlier.

It had been more than a little embarrassing to hear Hikari going eep and glance over at her to see her dearly wishing that they were at school or Shinji was under her command so she could order them to stop that, because Shinji hadn't been aware that he was making sounds like that.

Just… Kaworu's hands, with or without the silk gloves.

They were perfect, everything that was Kaworu was perfect, and for a moment Shinji understood why Kaworu liked the idea of dying for him. Maybe it wasn't just an angel thing, or a SEELE thing.

Because laying down his life to protect Kaworu, knowing that because he was dead Kaworu would live on, and be happy… Shinji knew he shouldn't think that way, because Kaworu would be sad if he died and he might even set off Third Impact to try to get Shinji back and Shinji didn't want to be responsible for Kaworu becoming more like the old men or, gods forbid, Gendo Ikari.

He especially shouldn't think that way because as the one person who could kill Kaworu, or at least render him vulnerable, Shinji's survival _was _a threat to Kaworu. The _only _threat to Kaworu. So killing himself… Kaworu would be absolutely safe if Shinji did that. Shinji could destroy the only threat to his beloved very, very easily. He had a gun on him right now, although trying it with Tabris and his healing powers right there was obviously a stupid idea.

Not that Shinji was seriously contemplating the idea.

Just that, well, if _one _of them had to die, when Kaworu was so kind, and perfect, and the only one who could save the world?

Well, not the _only _one. Armisael was just like Lilith, and Lilith was the one who terraformed earth in the first place. So Armisael might be able to put earth back the way it was, once they figured out how.

Shinji hoped no one else figured that out anytime soon. Humanity's long-term survival was the only reason most people were even willing to think about letting Armisael and Tabris live, and if people figured out that they only needed one of them? Well, that would probably instantly end the debate about Armisael, since people wanted Tabris (wanted _Adam) _dead far more, but Shinji had better not say anything about it.

Especially since Tabris had his AT field and an army, while Armisael was in a far more vulnerable body and in UN hands. So he very well might let people know that Armisael could grant them arable land, in theory, in order to protect this other sister. Just like he'd told them that she was humanity's new source of souls in order to keep Misato from having to order Naoko and Rei to attack Kyoko to kill the angel, with Asuka there inside her mother.

In order to get back to the original topic before Kaworu noticed anything, Shinji told Touji and Horaki that, "You should get on with it, you know. Everyone knows you like each other, and we don't mind. Do we?" he asked, looking at Touji's sister. When she shook her head, he turned back to the other pilots and said, "See? Get on with it, _Touji_. Don't just complain about how I'm making you look bad." So he'd kicked his slipper at Shinji because he was jealous, huh? Or that was what Shinji's smile implied.

"He's got you there," Kensuke admitted freely, reaching for where he normally kept his camera out of habit – no cameras inside the Fuyutsuki manor. Nor were they allowed inside NERV or the beta-type training areas, come to think of it, so it was a little odd that Kensuke always just assumed it would be there.

"Hey," Touji said, frowning. "She's my…"

"Not your commanding officer anymore," Kensuke reminded him, rolling his eyes unaware that Shinji was doing the same.

"I don't have a numbered series anymore, remember? That-" Remembering the present company, Touji shut his mouth, but his fists were still clenched. It took a parent's spirit to awaken a real Eva, provide it with an AT field. Mothers worked better because they had already experienced containing the soul of another Lilim inside the area guarded by their own soul – GEHIRN's research, published after Fuyutsuki revealed the conspiracy, speculated that the experience of childbirth was an absolute requirement for an Eva's soul.

Shinji knew very well that was the _only _reason his mother had him in the first place, to breed herself a pilot. In accordance with the prophecies.

"I am sorry," Kaworu, Tabris said, because the unit Bardiel had possessed, the unit Shinji was forced to destroy, had been a Numbered Series Eva because it had a soul. Because Touji's dying mother had signed the release paperwork to participate in a contact experiment without an Eva, so that if the LCL she was absorbed into was later used to empower an Eva, her son would be the pilot. Her son would have a share of the glory, a chance to be one of the world's heroes.

Despite his contamination level.

Even if Shinji was able to get Touji out of there with the Eva still intact, it wouldn't have saved her. Bardiel had _overwritten _her, just erased her soul when it moved in, the way a Third Impact triggered by an angel would have overwritten all of the Lilim.

The first activation of Unit 04, Touji's first chance to talk to his mother since her sacrifice, and it was already too late. She was already gone.

Because of one of Tabris' siblings, one of Adam's children.

Kaworu's eyes were closed, his head still bowed: he knew that no apology would ever be enough.

"What are you apologizing for?" Was what Touji wanted to know, although he looked away as he said that, an angry blush on his cheeks. "You didn't have anything to do with it, did you?" He'd better not have helped the other angel or anything like that. "And you healed me, so it's not like I can…" If Touji didn't accept Kaworu's apology after he'd already accepted Tabris' healing, then he'd seem petty even though Kaworu certainly hadn't done it in order to buy or extort Touji's forgiveness.

"I healed you because I owed it to you, not because I hoped to make you owe me," Kaworu told him, because he still didn't understand anger or hatred, so how could he really understand forgiveness? Not the 'of course' sort of forgiveness enabled by never holding a grudge in the first place, but what people did to overcome their own anger or resentment, or help someone else overcome theirs. He could try to make friends despite the hatred of the Lilim, but he'd failed in the face of Misato's desire for a target, something to kill to avenge her father and her world, so no wonder he'd wanted to think that complementation would just resolve everything.

That meant there was no need to struggle through learning how to do this on his own, so he hadn't and now he didn't have any idea that it was a little inappropriate to press Touji like this, not when he had already admitted that he'd forgiven Tabris, that he didn't hate him anymore. But Kaworu figuring that out would require reading between the lines, and Touji wasn't going to say it clearly, not when he was a pilot and seeming too friendly with SEELE's abomination would land him and his family by extension in all kinds of trouble, so Shinji put a hand on Kaworu's shoulder and made a note to explain to him that it was okay, really, later.

Touji flashed him a grateful look for making his boyfriend shut up so Touji didn't feel like he had to reassure the guy when that meant talking about not just feelings but taboo feelings. Normally not holding a grudge wasn't a big deal, but when everyone who wasn't SEELE was supposed to hold a grudge against Tabris? The last angel who would come to end their world, and the first one reborn? The first angel that would have woken up and tried to take their world for itself if SEELE hadn't stepped in and _only _made it kill billions? Oh, yeah, and Adam's vengeance in the form of the LCL was _still _gradually killing their world.

And everyone held Tabris responsible for this. For the deaths and/or for fixing it all.

Like it was his mess when Kaworu was far too kind to ever want to kill anyone, the inevitabilities of war aside.

Shinji took a deep breath, feeling the rage in his heart try to wake up. Wanting to defend Kaworu the way he'd grown up wanting to hurt his parents, but it wouldn't do anyone any good for him to get angry now. It wasn't like there was anyone here who deserved to be attacked, and his expression had worried Touji's little sister.

Kaworu too, from the silk-clad fingertips that brushed against his cheek.

"Sorry," Shinji said to Touji. "I wasn't angry at you."

Habit let Shinji still listen with half an ear to the interview with Armisael they were supposed to be watching, but there wasn't anything earthshattering. Not that they'd allow anything earthshattering to be broadcasted in this interview when it was meant to just introduce Armisael and try to get people to start calming down. The biggest thing was that Ritsuko was willing to take the risk of having Rei be so openly friendly with Armisael, with the other abomination, but that might just be Rei wanting to help.

If even Shinji was worried, though, Ritsuko must be biting her fingernails. Yeah, he really should head over to the Geofront and see the rest of his family: Professor Fuyutsuki was the only one who came back here to sleep these days, and that was probably because he was worried about Shinji and felt he needed to make it clear that someone was supervising Shinji for his son's own sake.

He might be in love now, but his family was still his family, and he really had been a jerk to Rei all those years. He needed to apologize for that. He'd tried not to be obviously avoiding her, not to make it clear that he was rejecting her friendship because she was an abomination made by his dad with his mom's genes, but he'd failed. He'd failed very badly, and hurt her feelings, and Shinji had no right to get morally outraged about people treating Tabris unfairly while he was doing the same thing to Rei.

Even if he didn't want Ritsuko or Misato to know about the inhuma-the not-normal part of sex with Kaworu, he needed to let Rei know so that it didn't come as a surprise to her, didn't make her first relationship end with her partner freaking out and running after their souls finished separating and it was possible to escape. By this point, Shinji had tested it enough to know that once Kaworu opened like that, it was just not possible for Shinji to stop himself from merging with him. It wasn't possible for him to fight off his own instincts, and that wasn't just because he loved Kaworu. If anything, his fear of killing Kaworu should have made it easier to resist.

Doing _that _still creeped him out. What if Kaworu regrew whatever missing organ, whatever his original body had that his Lilim one didn't that was keeping Third Impact from happening? It bothered Shinji, but Kaworu needed it, and it made him happy, so Shinji was willing to do it. No matter how uncomfortable or afraid (for everyone, but especially Kaworu) it made him.

Kaworu knew it bothered Shinji: there was no way to keep him from knowing, when doing that merged them. He'd tried to tell Shinji they didn't have to do it anymore if it bothered Shinji that much, but Kaworu _needed_ it so yes, Shinji really did have to insist.

But if he didn't love Tabris as much as he did, then he would have done the sane thing and refused.

So yes, Rei did have to know, so she could break it to her lover gently. And so she could help Shinji find out if Armisael was affected by this instinct. It was possible that neither of them were: black seeds weren't the same as white seeds and Shinji was pretty sure there was no way someone had been doing this with Rei for years and she'd been fine so far, but then again Tabris hadn't had any urges until after he turned fifteen, so Shinji wasn't prepared to bet that Rei had less of the angel version of a sex drive.

The sad thing was that giving the abomination version of the talk to his sort-of-niece and sort-of-sister-in-law and trying to help her find a friend with benefits or something fast was still a much less horrible way to save the world than Eva piloting. More _embarrassing_, but he'd rather have ten of those conversations than ever have to see his mother ever again.


	24. Robes of State

_Shinji having to do something he's uncomfortable with because of Kaworu, to keep him from ending the world. Even if this is so much better than killing him. But in relationships someone really shouldn't make the other person do anything they're not big on doing, especially in bed, and a good person would feel guilty about doing so. _

_There's a scanlated doujinshi named Klavier (Q spoilers!) that does a good job showing Kaworu's devotion to Shinji and what he wants. Here, Shinji wants to be the one to look after Kaworu so Shinji can feel he's worthwhile because he's contributing, while in the anime Shinji wanted someone that would take care of him so Shinji could feel worthwhile because someone cared enough to want to treat him right. Even though that's the overall dynamic, though, Kaworu wants to be certain that Shinji is taken care of in bed to make up for Kaworu's need to merge. Since Shinji is the one who has actually thought about sex before, this means finding out what Shinji wants and likes._

_Shinji's also Gendo Ikari's son, so there's a bit of possessiveness there which is actually a very good thing for Kaworu's sake since all Kaworus are too self-sacrificing, and a Shinji telling him he's not allowed to do that will hopefully reduce the odds of Kaworu dying._

_There's a joke about "What happens if you put two ukes in a boat? They fix the boat." Or in this case work together to fix the planet. It's nice to see relationships where both sides want to help and support the other rather than one being in charge and doing what they want. _

_Possibly I should make this fic M to be on the safe side even though it's all non-explicit and they don't actually get very far in this chapter. Mostly fluff, worldbuilding and surprisingly enough some plot, if you skip to the end!_

* * *

"I think it's that… Your body is your body," Shinji tried to explain, sliding his hands down Kaworu's sides, feeling the rough patches where the silk was embroidered. White-silver on white-silver, the usual cloud motif but the back of the robe was adored with what was either a kirin or a unicorn. Shinji thought the unicorn was more appropriate: the symbol of a messiah, a holy beast of good and light that purified the air and the water, as SEELE believed that Tabris' presence in the complementation would purify humanity's souls. For a holy emperor, though? "It's just how you were made."

As a weapon, an abomination, an enemy.

"But this is how you want to be seen. What you've chosen." To show people. To be. "I can't see into your mind, but this is how you show people who you are. Is that okay?" the brown-haired teenager asked more than a little sheepishly, color in his cheeks, because it probably was odd and he was worried that Kaworu would think Shinji was weird. Or worse, interested in doing this because it meant he didn't have to look at Tabris' inhuman body.

"My desire to be understood, to be loved and wanted, seen as someone Lilim would wish to be near instead of something repulsive…" Kaworu could only smile, because Shinji _understood_. "I didn't pretend to be Kaworu Nagisa because I wanted to lie to you. I wanted you to…"

"To see that we could be friends," Shinji finished when Kaworu's voice trailed off, lost in memories and embarrassment. He'd been such a child when he chose such a transparently fake name. He was still a child in some ways, and Shinji wanted to keep that innocence intact even though he was, well, stripping Kaworu of his sexual innocence maybe a little too eagerly. Even Kaworu wasn't that near sixteen yet.

He just wanted to touch him, wanted to be with him and to be loved by him _so much_.

The real reason they were doing this tonight, though, was that Kaworu insisted.

"It bothers you, doesn't it?" Kaworu said as the morning sun streamed through the embassy's windows. At first Shinji was shocked, seriously shocked, to see Kaworu had windows like that. What about security?

What could an ordinary assassin do, faced with Tabris' AT field? These quarters had been here long before anyone had seriously thought that Tabris would ever come to Tokyo-2. The design was nothing less than a boast of their god-prince's invulnerability.

The glass was frosted, at least, but solely for privacy's sake. It wouldn't be enough to keep a sniper to see someone moving in between those windows and a light source. Tabris didn't need to be careful, but force of habit made Shinji keep an eye on where he was relative to those windows. He did not want to think about what might happen if he was killed right in front of Kaworu, even if it would probably take a headshot to destroy his brain before Tabris could heal him.

That was a depressing topic to think about when Kaworu was standing here like this, clad in that robe and those familiar gloves and only that. His usual make-up, instead of making himself up to look like the Kaworu Shinji first met.

He'd offered: it took a little work to argue him out of it. Stroking Shinji's hair, speaking softly, coaxingly: was he _really _sure he didn't want that? To pretend they were ordinary boys, just for one night? To pretend there wasn't this weight of destiny and worldly significance between them, that they were simply two teenagers enjoying themselves?

"I don't mind," was what Shinji said to that, "but I think that's your fantasy, not mine."

It was a relief, it really was, that he didn't want that fantasy, didn't want to delude himself by imagining that Kaworu was only Kaworu Nagisa, just a musician from old money who wanted nothing more than to keep playing at small concerts with Shinji. By imagining that Kaworu was a human – well, he was human, but a Lilim-type, ordinary human – Shinji could imagine that they could just sink into comfortable obscurity together, that their love was no one's business but their own, definitely not something news stations would run stories on. At least not once people got over the announcement that one of the pilots was getting married. He remembered the fuss over Misato's wedding: he'd been ringbearer.

But that wasn't who Kaworu really was, and even if he was an abomination, even if he came with a crown, Shinji was kind of surprised that he wasn't that interested in the offer to run away from that reality, even if only for a night. He was glad he wasn't secretly longing for it, because those things didn't really matter. They shouldn't matter, not next to Kaworu himself.

"You may be right," Kaworu admitted, with first a rueful smile and then a sigh. "What, then? Because it isn't fair of me. Not to keep asking you to merge with me when it bothers you so." Made Shinji afraid that this time they might set off Third Impact and kill everyone, including Kaworu. "If you won't let me try to stop," not when it was something Kaworu needed, "or even go without for a few weeks to see how long I can stand it, then I should… No, I must do something to make it up to you. I feel like I am forcing you to do something that scares you, that you feel is wrong and perverted because of the risk to others, and that is horrible of me." It wasn't right to ask something of Shinji that he didn't want, especially in bed.

"It's fine, Kaworu. It does bother me," Shinji admitted only because he had to: lying wouldn't work when he was letting Kaworu sense his emotions some of the time _and _Kaworu could remember how Shinji felt when they merged. "But not because I'm unwilling, just that I'm worried."

"That this time we might end the world, and you would have a part in it." That all the people who said that Shinji might betray humanity, just like his parents, might be right. "I am watching my body to make sure it isn't changing," Kaworu promised him. From the flash of surprise in Shinji's eyes, his lover had assumed that of course Kaworu would watch that, would make sure his body wasn't growing some exotic organ that would let them cause Third Impact. Seeing that Shinji took Kaworu's powers for granted now, assumed that Kaworu would make use of them not for evil purposes but for good and useful things? It made him feel warm, and he had to reach out to touch his lover's cheek. Brush his fingertips against that colored, Lilim skin not to feel Shinji's emotions but just to feel. Shinji's skin, his presence, his warmth.

"I would like to adorn you," he told his beloved, even though this was supposed to be about what Shinji wanted, what Kaworu could give him as thanks and repayment for fulfilling Kaworu's own desires and needs so kindly, so generously. Letting Kaworu take that bright, glimmering soul into his, letting him taste of the glory hidden in Lilim imperfection, the glory that could be born of that imperfection. If Keel and the others had seen this, felt this shimmering soul, then could they have come to understand that there was value in Lilim existence, as painful as it was? "I wish I could let everyone see how wonderful you are. You are… if you are willing, you will..." Kaworu ducked his head to the side, then glanced at him. "I know that you prefer simpler clothing, but someday, will you let me bring out your inner beauty? Let them see you as you truly are, or at least as you are in my eyes?" In the sight granted by Tabris' soul.

"It can't feel weirder than plugsuits," was Shinji's response. At first it was quite disheartening that Shinji was so unenthusiastic, until Kaworu saw Shinji glancing at him, surprised that Kaworu wasn't responding. Oh, so that was banter, then? At least something of a joke? "Make-up looks a lot less disgusting than LCL," Shinji explained, to reassure Kaworu. "And plugsuits are fetish gear," no thanks to Misato's fanbase. "Even a frilly maid outfit would make me feel a lot less perverted than my uniform," he said, making a face. "I know that's not your style," not over-elaborate things, and certainly not ruffles, "but… Yeah," he said, blushing a little.

"Some of my caretakers wished it was." Since he was such a cute little thing and should have clothes that highlighted that cuteness, "but the council thought that was the wrong image to project. Having so many layers like that… I might like hot water, but this body sweats just like everyone else's." So layers of ruffly undercoats became very uncomfortable very quickly, in the heat of the eternal summer.

Shinji smiled: he must have noticed, when they were… doing certain things. At least throwing off the sheets let the air conditioning reach their heated bodies. Kaworu couldn't help but feel warm at the thought that Shinji preferred to have the lights on, didn't try to hide in the darkness or under the sheets as though they were doing something shameful. As though he found making love to Tabris shameful. So, "No lace and no tentacles," Kaworu promised, remembering how Shinji had reassured him that he wouldn't be disgusted by Tabris' bare body.

The way Shinji glanced to the side made red eyes widen. "Is… that what you want?"

It wasn't until Shinji frowned and touched the back of one of Tabris' hands that he realized he was gripping his arms. How strange, he thought, as he looked at Shinji's hand still hovering there, the contrast between it and his own skin. Such a strong physical reaction as hugging himself? Since that was why Lilim crossed their arms in front of them to grasp high on their upper arms like this, as opposed to the defensive reaction that was crossing their forearms.

"Not if it bothers you that much," Shinji told him firmly.

"I don't… I never experimented with shapeshifting. I never wanted to, and those who oversaw my training didn't make me." Even if there wasn't that much risk that something might go wrong and he might be stuck that way, that which didn't look human was seen as enemy, as other, and it hurt that he was already seen that way.

"Kaworu… I thought about it in order to make you see that I really don't care. Even if it was tentacles." That he didn't care what Kaworu looked like, or that Kaworu was Tabris. Just that Kaworu was Kaworu, the boy who flung his arms around Shinji now.

Far better to cling to Shinji, his warmth, strength and glimmering light, than to curl up and isolate himself to avoid pain. That was part of what led the old men down their despairing path.

A human hand in silver hair, warm breath in his ear and Shinji's voice saying, "If you're still that afraid, then I want to help you get over it. If that's something that I can do for you."

"You already have done so much for me. Granted me my first friend, sheltered me from the call of Adam and Lilith's bodies…" From having to kill himself somehow (he couldn't, he mustn't make Shinji do it, no matter the prophecies, not unless he was certain Shinji knew they would be reunited since otherwise his love would grieve) so he didn't destroy what was left of this world and the Lilim who inhabited it. The Lilim and their hopes and their songs. The race that was like Shinji.

Was it not a seed's task to choose the angel whose race should populate the world? And he had chosen Shinji. So surely his desire to merge with Shinji was not simply born of his desire to be one with him, but his desire for the Lilim to survive. For Shinji and the race that produced such a treasure to live on eternally.

For now, though, it was more than enough that beloved hands slid down the sides of the silk robe he wore, hands that paused at a certain point.

Shinji blushed. He was adorable when he blushed, and it made Kaworu smile. He'd hoped that Shinji would blush. "You're not…" the teenager said, more color filling his cheeks as he realized that no, Kaworu wasn't, and he'd anticipated Shinji would react that way.

"Ease of access," was that the phrase, or Kaworu was pretty sure it was. He could easily do a search to confirm, but he had a habit of staying away from such things. His first attempt to understand Lilim sexual desire after his caretakers gave him what was clearly a heavily edited explanation of it had scarred him more than a little. Meant to be an expression of love and the desire for the other to live, and yet Lilim… Didn't having sex with someone who didn't want to have sex defeat the entire purpose?

He was lucky that Shinji knew so much more than he did (thanks to Kaji, almost certainly) and that he had spent at least a little time among boys his own age. "Also the line over my hips is better this way," he told Shinji. "It's not as though I have reactions that I need to hide." With tight briefs. "Well, not until you." And he could still control his own body and keep them from happening at inconvenient moments, like when Shinji wasn't there to sate the desire he inspired.

"Wait, you mean you go around without underwear and…"

Now Shinji was blushing furiously, and although Kaworu was pretty sure this was a point where someone would normally tease their lover he just didn't have the heart to watch Shinji's discomfort. He had to admit that, "No, partially because I fly a lot while I'm at home." And flying while wearing robes without anything underneath them was a definite no, he'd learned that very early on.

"Good," Shinji said, with unusual firmness as he tried to fight down the blush.

Ah, Shinji did have to worry about how ordinary Lilim male bodies reacted very easily. Was he thinking that if he saw Tabris on television or thought about him during a debriefing, then the realization that Kaworu might not be wearing underwear might make him react when he didn't want to?

Kaworu would hate to cause him discomfort or embarrassment, so he leaned forward to kiss at Shinji's cheek in apology. "Do you want me to put some on? You said that you wanted me clothed like this, so…" His gloved hands traced down the skin of Shinji's bare back.

The brown-haired boy shook his head quickly. "This is fine. I mean, we're in bed," or they were going to be, "so… This is nice." Really nice. "…Do you like making me blush?" Shinji demanded, but that smile showed he was flattered, not upset.

"I like knowing that I'm affecting you. That you desire me. It isn't cruel of me, is it? Please tell me if I ever do anything that bothers you?" Kaworu could sense Shinji's discomfort, but only if Shinji had given him permission to sense his love's emotions. Surely if Shinji didn't want him to know, then he wouldn't give that permission. Not only would Shinji be unhappy but Kaworu would be unable to feel Shinji's heart until Shinji was willing to tell him what he did wrong. Just thinking about it made him ache a little.

Shinji nodded, because why wouldn't he? His hands started moving again, gliding over the silk down to Tabris' thighs. "It's all foreplay to you, isn't it?" he asked, and the blush returned. "Everything that isn't merging. That's actually kind of reassuring," he said hurriedly when Kaworu frowned a little, about to ask if Shinji was displeased by this. "Since it means that if I mess up, or… But just because you're easy to please," now that Shinji knew how, "Doesn't mean I don't want to make sure you enjoy the, the sex part." He cringed a little from embarrassment at saying it, despite where they were and what they were starting to do, so Kaworu stroked his silk-covered hands down Shinji's back again, urging him to go on. "Since it's not actually what you want to do."

"But I do want it. I like to hold you, I like to feel your body against mine. Taste the wine of your kisses," that brought a smile to Shinji's lips, even if it wasn't quite a quote of Kaworu's favorite song. "See you in pleasure, and feel the pleasure you wish to grant me." Precious touch, precious proof of love and desire. He drew a hand forward to touch Shinji's face with the white silk, even as the other tugged Shinji closer to him. "I wish to give you every joy. This body… Was I not born to meet you, born to fall in love with you in order to grant the future to the Lilim race? To give you everything: that is my wish. But then you give me so much happiness, put aside your own desires to give me what I need," even though merging disturbed Shinji, "and I… I love you so much that I ache, deep inside my chest, where it ached when I couldn't see you." When he'd thought Shinji must surely have taken refuge from the pain of loneliness in hatred. "Any desire I can grant you, any fantasy you have… If you want it, then I want it. Even, even shapechanging." It was only fair that he do something that disturbed him when Shinji was.

"This is fine for now, Kaworu," Shinji told him, taking that white-gloved hand in his and pulling back a little to look into red eyes. "Really, it's fine. With people you care about, especially people you love, it's not supposed to be about getting even. I don't want to be one of those people who takes their fear out on you." Fear of merging, fear of Third Impact. "I'm just happy I get to do this: I thought about it, but I was worried that you'd think I didn't want to see your body."

He shook his head. "No, I'm happy that you wanted me to make myself beautiful for you." For you.

Shinji looked a little surprised by the word 'beautiful.' Those weren't his exact words, when he'd described the fantasy he was willing to let Kaworu act out for him.

"Because that word is feminine?" Kaworu wondered. "I've been asked about that, and really… Male or female just isn't that important to me. I'm aware that the body this soul originally dwelled in was female, but I certainly don't feel as though I'm trapped in a body that doesn't suit me, or resent SEELE for forcing me to comply with their idea of Adam. Not in this respect, at least." Other parts of the doctrine… "I call myself a man, or boy, because that's what Lilim see when they look at this body, but I really wouldn't mind if I woke up next morning as a woman, except for the bother it would cause my staff." Retailoring all his clothes to fit slightly different proportions.

"You." That was all Shinji had to say to that. "I really don't think they'd mind the work." Not when it was for Tabris' sake.

"I… seem to be a bit attached to my role as a seed, but despite the fact that both the seeds were genetically female, I don't seem to be more inclined to that gender than this. I've wondered if being a seed is just so different from the Lilim genders that 'a little more like a woman' is still too small a similarity to really matter?"

"People were talking about third and fourth genders before the Rapture, trying to get them recognized." Unfortunately, humans being humans, they had wanted there to be a _reason _for such a catastrophe, so much death and destruction.

A certain kind of mind found 'we brought this on ourselves, and here's what we can do to keep it from happening again' so much more attractive a notion than 'these things just happen, and there's nothing we can do to keep it from happening again at any moment.'

So until the revelation that the Rapture, that Second Impact was an act of man instead of an act of god, those with 'sinful, deviant lifestyles' were targets of hate, because the survivors wanted someone to blame, someone to avenge their loved ones upon. Hate that was later redirected at SEELE, but not entirely.

Even though as a northern country, shielded from the blast by South America, the United States should have made it through Second Impact mostly intact, its more prosperous coastal areas were the ones devastated by the tsunami… and then its religious core had turned on the 'godless liberal' population, some of them because they feared that not dying in the Rapture meant that they were sinful, and the way to earn God's favor was to forcibly convert the heathen and kill the other sinners.

The widespread riots and killings committed by those insane with grief had destabilized their society, preventing any semblance of economic recovery, and then when things were startling to settle down Fuyutsuki revealed SEELE's conspiracy. That it wasn't science and sin that had brought about the great tragedy, but a conspiracy of a Judeo-Christian religious right.

Unfortunately, the ACLU and other organizations that might have pointed out that mass arrests of possible SEELE sympathizers and persecution of people because of their religion were unconstitutional were among the organizations previously gutted by terrorists who believed those organizations, by promoting sin, had brought about the Rapture.

A decade later, and the country was still in the grip of a new McCarthyism.

The US hadn't committed a lot of troops to the UN forces because they were needed at home. And they were _still _needed at home. The one silver lining to it all was that the country had already been forced to work out how to quarantine large numbers of people for their own protection in ways that at least tried to preserve the rights of these people and avoid the stigma of it being assumed that they were being locked up because they were probably criminals. They had the lowest death rate among the Children of Armisael… but that was only half because they had more experience keeping people safe. The other half was because they had a lower percent population of crazies willing to shoot kids. Not because their population wasn't among the angriest and most likely to produce anti-SEELE lynch mobs on the planet, but because most of the people angry enough to pick up a weapon and try to kill abomination-worshippers _had already done so_. The country wasn't so much pacified as at a rolling boil, with the government mostly trying to keep the hatred from boiling over in ways that caused civilian casualties.

They had gone from one of the more religious developed countries on the planet to one of the least openly religious, but that just meant that those who still believed in a Judeo-Christian God were either fanatics or so disgusted by their brethren and too afraid of their neighbors to worship openly, much less instruct their children and risk being accused of poisoning young minds.

As a backlash from the first, pre-revelation of SEELE wave of violence, the US was now almost aggressively socially liberal, with the population willing to vote for just about any measure that offered the promise it would make religious fanatics froth at the mouth.

That didn't mean they were likely to be accepting of Tabris' relationship, or anything to do with Tabris. The only reason the US hadn't left the UN when it started _negotiating with Refuge _was because the government didn't want to lose their seat on the Security Council. The general population didn't care about that, and a lot of politicians were going to lose their seats in the next election over this issue.

Within three years after the revelation of SEELE, it had become safe to be openly gay in the United States again – it still wasn't safe in quite a lot of other countries. Finding out that _Tabris _was in love with another man? At the same time as they found out about the Children of Armisael? Widespread anti-homosexual violence hadn't resumed, but there was a great deal of fear that it would, and that the only reason it hadn't was that the crazies would rather go after actual abominations than people who had a single trait in common with one abomination, especially when their culture now demonized homophobia, considered it a trait of SEELE sympathizers and religious fanatics.

Gun ownership in the country had gone up, because unfortunately the segment of the population that considered them distasteful murder weapons had gotten hit in the teeth with what happened when only the violent criminals had guns. A lot of people joked that the floating city of New San Francisco had been built out of ammo crates. That cut down on crimes of opportunity, since people were well aware that if they attacked a possibly-still-Christian neighbor they had a very good chance of winding up dead, but the thing about fanatics was that they were willing to die, if they didn't _want _to in the first place.

Die and go to heaven, with their family members who were killed in the Rapture.

Die and be reunited with a loved one killed in one of the many wars and riots that followed Second Impact.

Tokyo-3 was one of the safest places on the planet, between the security forces and the world's awareness that NERV needed to succeed or they were _all _dead. For the rest of the world, though, violence was a constant threat. Shinji's habitual vigilance was better trained than most people's, but his entire generation had never known peace.

Watched over by Tabris (with the threat of Tabris), Refuge was mostly untouched by the riots and neighbor-against-neighbor violence that wracked the rest of the world, but even there they were well aware that the entire rest of the planet wanted them dead. That was why they were there, fleeing that violence.

Shinji's forehead leaned against Kaworu's now, because they didn't need to talk about this to know where their thoughts were going. How the acceptance of human differences was tied to history, to the state of the world. To the hatred that made people seek to kill. Not just the abomination that masqueraded as a human, not just the son of the Whore of Babylon and the Great Deceiver, but their neighbors. Even themselves. There were many who would rather see Earth die than owe its survival to an abomination, than see humanity continue to bow down before an abomination.

"I'm sorry," Shinji said finally. "I wanted to cheer you up, let you know that it was okay and not all that strange – I wonder if some people feel like they're a different gender than male or female because we _are _angels, so the genes to be seeds or the other kind of angel are still there – but I made you think of that. I want to make you happy. I'm done Eva piloting: you're the one who can save the world now, so… I want to support you. Keep the bastards from getting to you."

"You do," Kaworu said, closing his eyes. "If it weren't for you, I'm sure the urge to cause Third Impact would be gnawing at me, I wouldn't be able to think, either to study my power to shape life or to try to create peace. I hoped, back then, that by playing with you I could help give you strength, give you something to look forward to since you didn't believe in complementation, but you truly have," he swallowed. "You truly have granted me so many reasons to live. You… you are proof that the Lilim are the race that deserves this world, deserves to have the future. The avatar of everything I love." He took a deep breath. "I have something for you tonight. Perhaps it was cowardly of me to greet you like this instead of presenting you with it when you arrived. You would have found out about it when we became one, and I wouldn't have had to explain. I know that you want to be the one to offer me a ring, and I know that I should wait, but… This belongs to you regardless of whether you love me or not, whether you are willing to marry me or not. This really is something I should give you at a ceremony, for all of my people to see so that they know. Not something to give you in secret, but… I want you to have it. I want you to know what it is, and what it symbolizes."

Tabris pulled away and Shinji let him go, watching as he stepped lightly, walking on his toes (which didn't help the height difference) to a box in the middle of the three mirrors of his make-up dresser. Shinji should have realized that only something important would be placed there, where it'd get in the way.

Kaworu glanced back at him, clearly asking him to follow. Or asking why he wasn't following. Taking Shinji's hand when he came close, he said, "Stand here?" and positioned him in front of the mirrors. Pale hands hesitated to open the box: "Would you close your eyes?"

He obeyed because this was Kaworu, and he really didn't like to see him so nervous. Best to hurry and find out what this was about so he could get it over with.

Even with his eyes closed he could tell that Kaworu was opening the box, taking something out of it and coming to stand behind Shinji. A breath, and something settled around his head. It felt cold where it touched Shinji's forehead, where his hair wasn't in the way.

He opened his eyes.

"It's yours," Kaworu said simply. "I shouldn't grant it to you now, because power over me comes with power over my people, and yet you _do _have power over me. My people fear that you will sell me and them for your own advantage, as your parents would have, but the only way for me to show them that they can trust you is to show that I trust you. The prophecies have been revealed to the world: all the world knows that I would have died to grant you the right to this world, to choose the future of this world. I was created from Adam as a servant of the Lilim: I have _chosen _to serve the Lilim."

He was talking so much because he was nervous, Shinji knew, but all he could do was stare because _a crown_.

He'd expected to get one at some point, as Prince Consort. That would be having power because he was Tabris' consort, though. Not in his own name, or his own right.

He'd thought that he could step into Tabris' shadow. _Be _Tabris' shadow. Not quite comfortable obscurity, but still just a helper, just part of Kaworu-and-Shinji. Not as someone people would be counting on to lead them, to play an important role in saving the world.

His hand touched the crown, just a modest gold band with a little engraving molded to fit his head instead of something heavy with gems and velvets (Tabris' own crown of office was a platinum circlet, perfect in its simplicity) and he realized just how much he wanted to take it off, to run away from it and what it represented. The only reason he wasn't was that in order to do that, he would have to run away from Kaworu.

Shinji refused to be like his parents. Nor was he going to be like Kaji.

So he let his hand drop down to his lap, and it made him smile a little that Kaworu knew what this meant, from the arms that wrapped around him now. From the chin that rested on his shoulder, silk pressed up against Shinji's bare back as Kaworu murmured words of devotion in ancient languages.

Some of those words Shinji even understood: he'd grown up with this stuff despite the 'no shop talk at the dinner table rule.' Puzzling out the prophecies was important and…

A chill ran down his spine. "Messiah?!"

"The anointed one, a king chosen by a god to rule his people with wisdom and kindness."

Kaworu wasn't denying it? Shinji had hoped that he was going to deny it! That Kaworu had been quoting some bit of ancient poetry, he did that a lot!

"More of the scrolls have been decoded," Tabris told him, and even the hand that rubbed his shoulder couldn't help him calm down, not after hearing that. "Who but you has the right to be named King of the Lilim?"

Blue eyes staring into their reflections' in the futile hope for some help here, Shinji saw that there was absolutely nothing any version of him could think of to say that could possibly get him out of this.

* * *

_The word Shinji recognized was actually Greek for 'anointed one,' a king anointed with holy oils and blessed by God as part of the ceremony. The word is generally translated into English as 'Messiah,' but the word Tabris used is Christos. _

_Since Tabris essentially is God in the religion pitched to Refuge's inhabitants, this does literally make Shinji the messiah, since he's the king chosen by Tabris. The Sadly Mythtaken here isn't whether or not Shinji's the messiah, it's that according to Rebuild the King of the Lilim (in the prophecies?) is actually _Gendo Ikari, _who would not be a messiah since he basically chose himself. _

_Gendo Ikari would be a king but not a messiah, since he's trying to kill God instead of being in his service. Shinji would be a messiah, since he's a king that was chosen by God. Tabris is a son of God, and a king: if he crowned himself that would make him a messiah, but messiah and Son of God are not the same thing. _

_Still, since Gendo's dead Shinji would be the logical heir to the title of King of the Lilim regardless._

_I would appreciate feedback, especially since this is really being written for fanservice (yes I consider worldbuilding fanservice, I'm weird like that). In addition to helping writers improve and know what not to do, feedback also lets us know what worked and what the readers liked so we can do more of that. _

_Is there anything any of you would like to see? Other than explicit scenes, I'm afraid. I used to be able to do explicit, but not for a few years now. Please let me know thoughts and requests in reviews._


	25. You and Me You or Me

_Thanks for the suggestions you guys left in reviews! I plan to incorporate most of them, except the one with the seed from NGE2 showing up. The trouble is that having someone show up who knows how this whole terraforming thing works that Kaworu could just download the information from would let Earth get fixed too easily, and right now the need to work together to fix it is the only thing that could possibly get humanity to stay focused and not go to war._

_Once Tabris fixes the planet, they don't need him anymore. NERV would be ordered to go back to doing its job. Peace would go right back to not being an option and Shinji would get ordered to kill him. _

_Think about how WWIII was once considered absolutely certain because there were two sides with ideologies that hated each other and the Cold War actually involved a lot of violence that constantly threatened to boil over into full-scale conflict and yet it didn't happen because everyone knew that starting a conventional war had too much risk of turning into a nuclear war and it turned out that we as a species were not quite that stupid. "War called on account of Armageddon." If it weren't for the nukes, though? People have argued about the effectiveness of the nuclear deterrent, but given how many local wars did start even with that deterrent in place, the desire to go to war was clearly there. If it weren't for the need to avoid direct conflict, it would not have been confined to proxy states. Think about how WWI started: nations got dragged into wars because their ally nations were involved, the way America getting pulled into Vietnam was France's fault. People were aware that the factors that led to war were there. The nuclear thing gave them a very, very pressing reason to resist those forces. The international peace movement would not have been as big a thing as it was if the nuclear threat didn't constantly remind people of just how bad war would be._

_People hate the abominations and SEELE, and people's brains tend to turn off when hatred is involved. The _certainty _of utter annihilation if they don't make use of Tabris and Armisael, the will to survive, is really the only thing that could force people to fight their own emotions in order to keep thinking and try to make this work._

* * *

"It's a good move."

"It's a good move: That's all you have to say?" Shinji demanded, head in his hands and the, the crown in his lap as he sat in the one guest chair that had been brought into the NERV Commander's echoing office.

"You know how much difficulty we're having getting the UN to negotiate with an abomination as a head of state," Professor Fuyutsuki reminded his son, glancing at the drawer where he kept his stash. Unfortunately Misato was already drinking it and didn't look inclined to share the flask. His daughter had declared her intent to make sure the stress didn't make her stepfather develop a drinking problem by drinking it all herself years ago. "For a human who isn't one of the original members of SEELE to be even the nominal ruler would make this easier for some people to tolerate."

Misato stood to the right of his desk: Ritsuko flanking her on the left while the digital avatars of Naoko and Dr. Sohryu appeared on the lowered projection screens. The background behind the two Eva spirits were bright and lively, intended to be as unlike SEELE's dark monoliths as possible.

"He wants to hold the coronation ceremony before the wedding, so it's clear that this is my power instead of dependant on his," Shinji said, or rather reported, and sometimes Kozo wasn't sure if the boy made him ache with pride or with shame that he'd had to grow up so fast. That he was already so mature. Already a blooded warrior. Mentally decades older than the students Professor Fuyutsuki had taught before the Rapture, but still only fourteen, with all the confusion and agony that came with that. "He's willing to kneel before me to present me with the crown, instead of the other way around."

Misato whistled as both she and Ritsuko automatically glanced at the wall behind Shinji, the wall where Kaji once would have leaned and offered some choice comment. Instead Hyuga looked a little uncomfortable, standing there stiffly and more than smart enough to know who they were really looking for. Whose shoes he was trying to fill, at what was half a gathering of NERV's key members and half a family meeting. "King of the Lilim: that's going to make the UN worry that Refuge is about to become expansionist again." Would Tabris want to conquer the rest of the world to present it to his bri-groom?

"Damn prophecies," the Commander said, and glanced at his stolen flask again. "King of the Lilim… It was the researchers on our end who first managed to make that part legible, too. That was weeks ago, and no one thought it was especially important." The Secret Dead Sea Scrolls didn't only pertain to the end of the world: there were lots of scrolls buried in those caverns. "It must have taken this long for SEELE's own experts to confirm our work, especially after Tabris ate the old council." Who had become experts on the Scrolls themselves, and shared their knowledge with very few. "Or he might have made some connection we haven't so far, thanks to their knowledge." The UN might have the full scrolls now, but they were only beginning to study them, especially since they didn't want to just rely on SEELE's interpretations. Not that Tabris had shared Keel's or the rest of the council's interpretations of the scrolls with the UN, not when the entire point was getting a fresh interpretation of them, untainted by SEELE's dogma and possibly false assumptions.

"There's no way he'll want to be expansionist right now," Shinji knew.

"Now?" Misato asked, surprised. Shifting her weight to her other foot she remarked that "Not _now_ implies the possibility of _someday_."

"Not militarily," Shinji assured her with a half-shrug, blue eyes narrowed in thought. "But the old SEELE was only thinking about until Third Impact. That was their strength and then it became their weakness, but Tabris knows that time is on his side. That's why he's willing to wait and see if we can figure out a way to save the planet, make it inhabitable again, and he's letting us take the time the UN needs to confirm instrumentality and complementation. I told him that Instrumentality… no one has the right to make that decision for everyone. But if no one can make anything else work, and everyone agrees it's the only option? He doesn't want to fight or be hated. He thought that complementation was something that all the Lilim wanted, or would want if we really thought about it. That was what he believed in, what he agreed to. What he wants is to grant everyone's wishes. So he'll give us the time to see if it really is what we all want, but only because he has that time. There isn't a time limit on it anymore: if it takes us a century to give up he'll still be here. He won't die and condemn the Lilim to slow whimpering extinction, or destroy us himself if he waits too long. He torments himself with doubts and fears of failure, but that's just being human. If he really was in doubt, then he'd act now. Have me kill him now." To advance the timetable of SEELE's scenario, hasten the day the angel Lilim transformed itself into a God.

"That's only one side of it, though," Shinji went on. "If humanity can survive, if we do admit that we need his power to do it? Oh, he'll help all the UN countries reclaim their land from the LCL just because, but it would still mean we'd owe him, wouldn't it? Tabris doesn't think that way, but he understands now that other people do think that way. He knows how Lilim think now, and not just any Lilim. Master manipulators." SEELE. "He wants to help, wants to befriend people, and… I saw how easily he made friends when he was Kaworu. People knew they could trust him to help them. We Lilim… We're an angel, and weren't all the angels willing to die to reach the seeds? Isn't it the seeds that grant power, that hold the future? Tabris didn't have friends, before me. There are people who hate him and there are people who worship him. I don't think," he took a deep breath. "I don't think that's just because of their religion." In Refuge. "I'd like to think it's because he's Kaworu, that people recognize that he's just such a good person, so much kinder than any human could possibly be, but I have to wonder.

"If the people who thought that there was some kind of mind control effect around him were right." Everyone straightened without being aware of it, because _Shinji _saying something like that? "We are the Eighteenth Angel, and Angels are supposed to be called to the seeds, right? I don't think… I'm _certain _that he's not doing it on purpose. He hates that he can't make friends," except Shinji, "and he's afraid of Adam and Lilith's call, but even if it's not something he's doing on purpose, that doesn't guarantee that it isn't happening."

"Like men will be drawn to our breasts whether we want them to be or not," Ritsuko muttered, annoyed. Men kept assuming that just because a woman was attract_ive_ it meant she wanted to attract _them_. When a woman's beauty was a trait that was _hers, _not something that belonged to their eyes, something that existed for their sake. Breasts existed for the sake of the possible babies, not for men who acted like them.

Shinji nodded. "I think so. It's how people respond to him, not anything he's doing. He said that _all _Lilim can sense souls, even if we're not consciously aware of it. If that's true, then him having a soul that's so much brighter than all of ours, so different? I think that would be a little hard to miss. But he can still pass for an ordinary human, people can still look at him, see his soul and not be creeped out. If we're instinctively frightened of things that are different, things that we don't understand, then doesn't that mean that on some level we _do _know what we're seeing when we look at him? That we're not going 'this is different, that's weird and creepy' because we recognize why there are differences, so it's not a mystery? But even if we do know why there's a difference, people that are different still make us nervous." Like, oh, girls. "So there has to be something that's overriding our fear. I'm not someone who opens up to people very easily," he owed Rei and Asuka apologies for that, "but I became friends with Kaworu and it just felt so natural. I wasn't worried that he might secretly hate me, or worried that I'd get off on the wrong foot or, or anything. I wanted to, everyone wanted to be near him."

The elders glanced at each other: the way the angels were called to Adam and Lilith?

"Zuul," Fuyutsuki said thoughtfully. "A form that would never hurt us: the form of our mother Lilith."

The others got the reference after a few seconds, but Shinji was the only one who had been there for that conversation, so he was the first to nod. "Kaworu is someone who takes care of people. Everyone who's met him knows that about him. That's why I want to be the one to take care of him." He blushed, realizing that he'd said something private, or personal. Something important enough to him that it was semi-secret even from his family. "But if all of us are drawn to the seeds? I thought that of _course _people will like Kaworu if they give him a chance, but then I realized that isn't natural. People will dislike each other for all sorts of reasons. The people in Refuge: they really should be a lot more frustrated that Tabris isn't giving them the complementation they were promised right now. People blame leaders for stuff they don't have any power over." He glanced at his father as he said that. "Even if they're doing the best they can, if they're not making everything happen instantly and perfectly it's just not going to be enough for some people. No ruler has ever been liked by all of their people, not unless someone was faking the poll results or people were too scared to tell the truth. And it's really hard to be frightened of Tabris if you know him. Even knowing how dangerous he would be if he wanted to be." The most powerful of the abominations. A being that could _eat souls_.

"So once we stop teaching people that he's our enemy, if we let go of our hatred," Misato said, her own eyes narrowed, "we'll be as vulnerable as the ones who gave him a chance," by going to Refuge, "and end up worshipping him too?"

"I'd like to think that I'm some proof that there's some middle ground," Shinji said with more than a trace of sadness, "but I love him. I love him like my father loved my mother." Enough to destroy the entire world for her. "I hate that," he didn't want to be like either of those monsters, "but I can't help it." Not when Tabris was Tabris. "I'm disgusted that part of me wants to blame him for this," for making him even a little like his parents, "but I don't think I'm just making an excuse. He's so perfect that just _meeting _him… He's such a good person. Maybe it's just that I'm in love, or infatuated or whatever, and I'm overestimating how special he is because my judgment is compromised. I mean, it's possible to love someone that everyone else despises: just because I think he's so great and my hormones act up around him doesn't mean he has the same effect on everyone else. Don't, don't take me too seriously," he said, looking shamefully down at the crown.

"He's your first crush," Ritsuko said with a glance at Misato, "but I don't know that means you're wrong. Still, I certainly haven't observed Rei having an easier time making friends than she logically should."

Misato and the Professor glanced at each other. Naoko just gave her daughter a level stare. "What?" Ritsuko asked.

"You think that Rei is the cutest thing on this red earth," Naoko told her daughter. "Even if people were fighting each other to pinch her cheeks, you'd still think they didn't love her as much as she deserved. Misato, the Professor and I were surprised how easy it was to convince the UN not only not to kill her, but to give her as much freedom as she's been allowed. Kaji wasn't." In hindsight, knowing that he was a follower of SEELE, someone who believed that the seeds of life and wisdom were more than just abominations that all of humanity should find repulsive? That made a certain unpleasant sense. "Now that Armisael's on TV?"

Everyone except Shinji looked at Kyoko, who looked thoughtful. "I despised the feel of Arael's soul, but the fact she was trying to fuck with my daughter probably had something to do with that. And she was an angel, not a seed, but even so… Armisael is just so snuggly!" Little hearts appeared in the computer generated image as Kyoko clasped her hands together enthusiastically. "She was just so lonely and she needed a hug so much! Asuka was always trying to grow up so fast: it's my fault for having her to try to upstage that other woman. I tried to make it up to her after I came to my senses, but trying to prove she's the best and strongest became part of her personality." The damage couldn't entirely be undone, and Asuka mostly responded to her mother saying she didn't have to push herself, really, and Mommy would love her no matter with outward disdain and only inner fuzzies. Heroic Eva pilots did not blush luminiscently because Mommy said she was proud of them. "I was trying to learn to be more demonstrative for Asuka's sake, but then I came in here," the Eva, "and that makes it a little hard to hug her. But Armisael was so snuggly! And she's a little blue dragon, a little Sohryu: it had to be fate!"

The squeeing mommy vanished in an instant, replaced by the second greatest Eva scientist on the face of the planet. "Fate," Dr. Kyoko Sohryu repeated for emphasis, looking each of them in the eyes.

"It's not part of the prophecies," Fuyutsuki reminded them. "Armisael is supposed to be killed by her opposite number: Lilith's sacrifice." Both Ritsuko and Kyoko's expressions grew even darker at the reminder of that: damn SEELE for not releasing the tactical information they had on the other abominations! "But the text is fragmented." And parts of it were damaged where it had been pieced together using improper methods. "And the idea of allowing an abomination to live on UN soil," Rei, "and now another…" Steepling his hands, he looked thoughtful. "Hyuga. Approve more TV exposure for Armisael."

"Sir?" Was that really a good idea?

"We need her. Well, technically we need her or Tabris, but she's under UN control." Unlike SEELE's abomination. "If the light of the soul is among the non-visible frequencies picked up by transmissions, even in a partial form…"

"Sir, you're suggesting that we expose the UN population to mind-altering radiation?"

"Don't call it that," Ritsuko said a little sharply. "Armisael doesn't have the wit to do something like that on purpose, or rather if she knew she could do anything like that, she would have tried it on Dr. Sohryu. If this phenomenon we're discussing even exists, then it's just another sense humans have. And tracking popular opinion of Armisael relative to amount viewed _might _let me verify this phenomenon, although I'll have to figure out how to design the experiment…" To compensate for the other factors working to get the population to accept their new source of babies and potential terraformer.

"If we're talking about a coronation followed by a wedding? The UN will want to know why if we refuse to let things like that broadcast in our territory. Especially if we're airing large amounts of footage of Armisael and possibly Rei as well at the same time." Surely the Commander couldn't just let that air, and expose the UN public to a possible mind control hazard. Keeping that kind of thing from getting through was part of the NERV Intelligence division's job!

"If it does work through ordinary footage," Naoko said thoughtfully, "You'd think Keel would have found that out. And what he knew, Tabris now knows."

"The man was a political genius and he analyzed the prophecies himself," Fuyutsuki told her, "but science? That's why Gendo Ikari got so much power over there." By heading their research into the genetic and Eva side of it: the engineering as opposed to the grand theories. "They probably just assumed that the Lilim were instinctively recognizing Tabris' innate superiority as a child of the White Seed… Which amounts to almost the same thing, doesn't it. It _sounds _ridiculous, but so did the idea that Earth was terraformed by godlike aliens, back in my day." Before Professor Fuyutsuki revealed the truth and ended that era of blissful ignorance.

"Tabris is probably so used to hearing people say that he's better than us and we should worship him that he wouldn't have paid attention to it if they believed something like that," Shinji said. "Wistful thinking." On SEELE's part, wanting to believe that Tabris was a superior being and that meant they could become superior beings. "He'd rather believe that he's winning us over by being himself. Who he is, not what he is." His words and deeds, not what amounted to sex appeal.

"So you hope you're wrong," Misato knew. "But you don't think you are." She closed her eyes, thinking back. "Naoko?" Naoko and Misato were the ones who had spent the most time in Tabris' presense, had the most exposure except for Shinji.

Naoko looked thoughtful, then slowly shook her head. "If this ever leaves this room, my vengeance will be swift and terrible, but I didn't like Rei at first. Especially because you were so attached to her, Ritsuko." Naoko's daughter getting herself in trouble by trying to protect some _thing_? "But if hatred armors us, then my hatred of that bastard," Gendo Ikari, "rubbing off on the abomination he made in his wife's image might have protected me until I made up my own mind about her. I think that she's my cute granddaughter, but that's what _I _think, not what my hormones think. Trust me," she said with a grimace of distaste, "I know the difference by now." After falling for Gendo Ikari and spending a decade trying to figure out what the hell she'd been thinking before being forced to conclude that genius scientist or not, she hadn't been. "As for Tabris, I knew all along how much destructive power he had, and what SEELE was using him to do." Who the hell cared how cute the thing was: he was a danger to everything on the planet including her daughter. "Then Armisael, and if I didn't know better I'd have assumed you were letting your guilt over Asuka affect your judgment, Kyoko. I didn't just suddenly like any of them, but I certainly did dislike all of them to begin with." So if conscious dislike was enough to ward off unconscious attraction?

"I can't tell either," Misato admitted. "Analyzing my emotions… That's just not me. Rei is Ritsuko's daughter and what's my sister's is mine. I wanted to dispose of her, but the soul would just have ended up in another clone in Gendo's hands, and Ritsuko wanted to bring her home with us, so better than the alternative." She'd just gone along with what the rest of the trio suggested: her job was figuring out how to smash things, not whether or not to smash stuff, not back then. "Tabris… It's hard not to give him a chance if he's making Shinji this happy, and I guess… this also never leaves this room, but it's a little hard not to like him if you do give him a chance. He's sweet, even if he's an idiot who let those bastards use him to deceive the world and protect their mass-murdering asses." He'd gotten between Misato and the men she wanted to kill more than anything, and it would be hard for her to ever forgive him for that. Even if he had killed them for her, in the end, she'd wanted their blood on her own fists, or Naoko's.

"Stupid sweet. Cloying, but I guess he's _my _arch-nemesis." So she knew him well, and if it was hard to know him and not like him? "Armisael's too… flimsy and touchy-feely and pathetic. She puts me off, to be honest. I'd rather have another daughter like Asuka." Who was Misato's step-daughter for legal purposes since it was a little hard for Kyoko to a lot of maternal things, like hugging, from inside the Eva.

"I would ask you for particulars, Shinji," the details of how he felt about Tabris/Kaworu, how that had changed over time, "but since that would involve listening to my fourteen-year-old son gush about his boyfriend and your sister took my vodka, I'd really rather not. Consider us duly warned, but at this point we don't have any firm evidence to suggest there's an effect, at least not one that works over the airwaves, and lucky for us the professional conspiracy theorists have already gone over this possibility. So as long as the intelligence division continues to exercise due caution," the Commander gave Hyuga a meaningful look, "I don't think this is a serious concern. We of all people," NERV's command staff, "can't afford to get bogged down in paranoid theories that aren't testable, or witch hunts."

Shinji nodded. "I know, I just thought I should mention the possibility."

"It's good to know you think there's a possibility so we can start thinking about how to handle this," and the inquiry, "but right now?" Fuyutsuki looked down at the crown and sighed. "I can't help being reminded of when I found out that your mother married Gendo. Of course, at the time I thought _he _was the one leading _her _astray." Before Yui, Gendo was a violent punk. Afterwards, he set off Second Impact, performed inhuman experiments and used his charisma to destabilize governments, especially Refuge's neighbors so SEELE could seize more resources and territory. "I suppose in this case that's a good omen. That he has more cause to be afraid of you than you do of him." When Shinji was supposed to be Tabris' death. "But, son, if you're the only threat to him that means he has motive to neutralize that threat. And so do his worshippers." Making the Secret Dead Sea Scrolls public meant making that public as well: it hadn't taken people very long to figure out who Tabris' destined beloved killer had to be.

Then came the inevitable public outcry of 'so why isn't the abomination dead yet?!'

Fuyutsuki pushed his hair back, once again thinking of how it had gone gray years ago and yet he was amazed the stress wasn't making it fall out on top of that. "Talking about how he has time… Please, Shinji. Please keep in mind that you may have to do your duty." He still might have to kill Tabris, for one reason or another. There were plenty of reasons. Shinji had to get used to that idea: he couldn't start thinking that it was never going to happen, or it would hurt more if it did. When it did.

"I know," Shinji said, careful to grip his legs instead of the crown: gold was soft. He was certain he was strong enough to damage it. To rip it apart. "I know, and he wouldn't want me to let it bother me too much."

The adults exchanged glances.

The silence wore on, until, "He's just so kind," Shinji said as though it was a confession. "He, he really is… I don't want SEELE to be right about _anything_, and I know so many kind people, but he's kinder than anyone I know. He's perfect, and there's no way I could not love him. He's, he's my Kaworu, and if it was him or me, if one of us had to die…" Shinji froze, and they saw his shoulders tremble a little.

It was Misato who said, "If it was him or you?" because she was the other Eva pilot here, and Shinji needed to bite the bullet, to force this out. They needed to know where he stood.

"…Him," Shinji said, and his shoulders hunched in, his whole body trembled, trying to hide from the horror of that thought. "Because that's what he would want. He's so much better than I am: I'd hate myself and want to die if I was the one to live, but Kaworu… He'd hurt so, so much. I could survive murdering someone even as wonderful as Kaworu, but Kaworu's so kind: he blames himself for Second Impact even though he knows better, so he couldn't ever forgive himself for living at the cost of my life. He'd have to keep on living for his people, and I couldn't, I couldn't do that to him. Even if it's better for the world if he's the one to live, I'd still… I still couldn't do that to him." Because Shinji, because the former pilot of Unit 01, loved his race's enemy more than he loved the world.

A pilot's job, but a pilot's duty, was to be a killer. Shinji's job was to kill abominations: that was what the world expected of him. This was what it wanted of him, the task he would be hailed as a hero for completing. The reason didn't matter. Not enough that anyone here would see any need to report this. To consider him compromised. If the order came it would be to kill Tabris, not to spare him. As long as Shinji carried it out no one could consider him a traitor.

Not in the UN territories, anyway.

Not that anyone present gave much of a damn about what the SEELE sympathizers in Refuge thought. Even if they'd fled there only out of fear for their lives or their children's, they'd known the consequences. They'd known that humanity was in a fight for survival and they were choosing the wrong side, in their desire to be on the winning side.

They didn't matter. Not next to Shinji.

It was Shinji that Misato crouched next to, pulling her baby brother up into her arms as Fuyutsuki carefully stood up and limped – he'd broken his lower left leg when a bodyguard knocked him down behind the podium during an assassination attempt, and it still ached sometimes in the glacial cold of NERV's inner chambers – over to join his daughter and his grieving boy.

Shinji wasn't crying. He'd cried so many tears after his mother gave herself to the Eva, but now he'd learned to hide them, to hold him in, and it was too soon, too young.

But it was what they'd asked of him, what the world needed, and Fuyutsuki knew he didn't deserve this, not when he'd almost found his courage too late.

They didn't deserve him but there he stood, right hand holding the crown offered for love of him as he trembled at the thought of losing that divine love. Holding it tight enough that either the metal or his flesh must give, something must break or be bent by the force of that emotion.

* * *

_There's a quote from Anno that Kaworu was envisioned as such a good person that just meeting him was going to give Shinji a complex. In the anime Shinji has been buried in how humans are bastards, everyone's messed up (especially himself) and then he meets someone who genuinely is perfectly kind. Legitimately a better person than Shinji ever could be: when Humans are Bastards is part of Eva's theme, Kaworu's kindness just is as much of a clue to what he is as his hair and skin tone, really. Because it's not humanly possible to be that nice, so either he's evil (this interpretation is part of why the hatedom) or he's not human._

_Shinji saying that Kaworu is the one who deserved to live, the superior lifeform? Yes, but as Misato points out Kaworu died because his will to live was inferior. The Lilim are the race who are willing to kill in cold blood (like Shinji kills Kaworu) and even use things like the Evas in order to extend our own lives. The Lilim are willing to fuck people over in order to ensure our own survival, while Kaworu isn't willing to kill billions (more) in order to survive himself. So the Lilim get the planet. Oh, Kaworu says that our music and so on are great and we deserve to live more, and he's way too nice so he probably believes that, but Shinji's got a good point too. A world populated by people as nice as Kaworu would be a much better world._

_After being burned so hard by every human he'd reached out to, I think that Shinji's awareness on some level that Kaworu wasn't human was part of why he opened up to Kaworu so quickly. It would almost have to have better odds of not ending badly. Arael was an evil, mind-raping bitch? She ain't got _nothing _on Gendo Ikari. And, you know, at least he's allowed to kill angels._

_Feedback is always adored and requests are still being accepted._


	26. So These Are Friends

Shinji looked back and forth between the two of them. He'd already dismissed the idea that they were planning to attack him when they'd confronted him in the hallway. They didn't seem to be armed (not that he was going to count on it, he'd been raised better than that) and while both of them were tense it was a nervous sort of tenseness instead of a ready to attack (or expecting attack) kind. Both of them had been trained at NERV's piloting academy, and Shinji knew the style the academy's instructors taught.

The style he himself used was a little different, since the NERV style was designed to be easily transferrable to Eva piloting, but attending those lessons meant he was confident he knew how the two of them would be placing their weight and positioning themselves if combat was even on the menu. So, "What?" he wondered, shifting the bag to his other hand. He'd got the juices they asked for from the coffee room's minifridge, but he was pretty sure they'd be going for the bag if that was what this was about.

"We just want to talk to you," Kensuke finally said.

"Since we're friends and all," Touji said, clearing his throat.

Friends? Shinji stopped himself from saying, 'I guess we're friends,' or anything along those lines, even though this was kind of news to him. They were people from the piloting academy who had invited themselves over to his house repeatedly. He guessed that he was willing to spend time with them, although most of that was because being under semi-house arrest left him a little bored and the two of them were staying over anyway. Neither of them played any instruments, although letting them into his music room would probably have ended in Asuka maiming Touji when she found out, Hikari or no Hikari.

Kaworu could fix him up again anyway.

"Say something," Touji said, looking a little annoyed that Shinji was just looking at him with slightly widened eyes and prolonging the awkwardness.

"Sorry." He gave them an apologetic smile. "I just never really thought that friends were something that would happen to me." Not when his parents were who they were. "I mean, Kaworu, but Kaworu was my music partner." Shinji hadn't really thought of him as a friend until someone had called Kaworu 'Shinji's friend,' and he'd realized that oh yeah, they kind of were friends. Except what Naoko said later, about how only people who didn't know a lot about love or friendship would mistake that for friendship when Kaworu's feelings were obviously love? "I mean, sure you are my friends," he said hurriedly, since they looked like they didn't know how to react to that and might decide on feeling insulted. "I guess that makes you my first friend-friends?" As opposed to either family or Kaworu.

Kensuke still looked a little surprised. "What about Rei and Asuka?"

Now Shinji was the one who wasn't sure if he should feel insulted or not, although he wasn't sure on whose behalf. "They're my _nieces." _Family. "And Kaji was my brother-in-law. I don't think that's really the same thing, but unless you want to stand out in the middle of the hall and talk about me not really knowing how to get along with people…" at least not people his own age who weren't involved in politics?

"Right," Kensuke said, looking around, and pulled them into the TV room.

Shinji sat down on the couch and opened a juice can: he'd volunteered to go look for them because he was thirsty. He had to push the bag in Touji's direction a second time before he took the hint and the bag from Shinji. "So what's this about?"

"Well, you don't really have any friends besides us, you said it yourself, so…" Touji looked at Kensuke for support.

"Tabris. Kaworu," Kensuke amended himself, or was he watching Shinji for his reactions to those two names?

"It's not like either of us has ever seriously dated anyone, but…"

"Is that what this is about?" Shinji was mystified. "Guys, I've got Misato for this, and she was married for years. If anything, I think you guys are the ones who need relationship advice." Blue eyes stared down Touji, who _still _hadn't made it official with the lieutenant. After two and a half weeks under the same roof, and that was only counting after Touji was cured and could be sure he had a future to spend with her. He couldn't really make plans when he wasn't sure if he'd ever be allowed out of a hospital bed. "And before you say that Misato's a woman or anything, I had _Kaji _for guy talk up until a few months ago. It's not that I don't appreciate the thought, I just don't know what the thought _is_. Help me out here, will you?"

"I don't mean any disrespect," Kensuke said, which was as good as saying 'with all due respect,' "but it's pretty clear to us that your family is thinking about the future. That's their _jobs_," so Kensuke didn't mean to imply that they were being irresponsible towards Shinji, "but Touji's right: you said it yourself that you don't have any other friends. It's not like we're not part of the Eva program, but I really don't think that there's really anyone neutral on the planet you can talk to. Not about this." Not when this was Tabris and Shinji was an Eva pilot, in addition to who he was and what else he was.

"You're offering to be on my side?" Shinji was touched, but even his heart knew to take that with a grain of salt. Like Kensuke had just said about Shinji's family, everyone here had a job.

"You're making it too complicated, Kensuke," Touji objected. "We're just worried about you. Hearing about what he had to do to fix my legs: I mean, tendrils inside my body, and hooking up to the nerves to make the new nerves hook up right, and he basically admitted that to make my body stop trying to fix itself and make crazy cancers he had to… do something else, right?" Touji couldn't come out and say 'connect to my subconscious' much less 'tamper with my mind.' That was too taboo, disgusting: an _abomination _doing that?

Contaminating him like that?

Just like Bardiel.

"I can say he's not doing anything like that to me," Shinji said, "but let's skip the part where you ask 'how can you be sure.' Because I trust him, alright?"

"He's not doing anything weird to you, is he?" Touji asked, glancing in the direction of the TV screen since there weren't any windows, hoping for a distraction. Unfortunately, it was off.

"The weirdest thing about him in bed is that he doesn't need to breathe," Shinji said bluntly. That was a lie (not that Kaworu didn't need to breathe, but that it was the weirdest thing), but from the startled blushing as the two of them realized the implications of that he probably had managed to make them stop asking about that sort of thing. "Why are you two asking about that? Are you curious about Rei?" he wondered, looking at Kensuke.

Kensuke looked alarmed.

"Oh, so you don't like her? The daughter of Dr. Akagi, who does your physicals and maintains, or doesn't maintain, your Evas. And has all the needles. And the knives. Really sharp knives, I've gotten to play with some of them." Thanks to Kaji.

"That is half an argument for professing my undying affection for Rei Fuyutsuki and half an argument for staying as far away from her as humanly possible," Kensuke pointed out after managing to calm down.

"Do you have a preference?"

"Other than for you to make up your mind?" Kensuke removed his glasses to clean them, mostly as an excuse to look down at his hands instead of at people. Shinji was sure that Kensuke was thinking longingly of his guns and other military hardware right now. So much easier to deal with. Shinji knew the feeling.

"Would it help you make up yours if I got my hands on some of the specs of that baby?" Shinji wondered, grinning.

Touji's eyes widened now, because he had a little sister, Rei was Shinji's niece and some things were not cool, but it was Kensuke's reaction Shinji was watching hopefully. Unfortunately he was too stunned that Shinji would even say that to show any other expression.

"How far she can punch through sheet steel, how many rounds per second she can fire with the telekinesis, what kind of blasts she can deflect," Shinji elaborated, since he didn't really want them thinking he was willing to just hand out Rei's _other _measurements.

Kensuke looked like he didn't know whether to be relieved or intrigued, which was pretty good. With the possible exception of the Evas, Rei _was _the third most powerful war machine on the planet: Tabris was more powerful because he was a Seed of Life while Armisael was more powerful because her soul wasn't exhausted by supporting a planet's life for eons. Rei could still go through conventional military forces like used tissue paper, not that NERV's PR tried to emphasize this. Unless you counted the fact that with her as the pilot of Unit 00, Naoko no longer needed a cord or a battery pack. So Kensuke's thing for military hardware might help Rei's odds a little?

Shinji frowned when he realized that actually, he might owe destiny. For Kaworu. Fate and destiny were supposed to be terrible things that people should fight against since, well, Second Impact just to start with.

The Rapture had certainly started things off with a bang.

Still, his parents had him in the first place to do nasty things to him so that they could use him for the stuff it was his destiny to do and what it could get him, but apparently his cursed fate also came with a Kaworu.

For someone who had grown up with the knowledge that yes, the universe actively did have it in for him, and fate really was working to screw him over, this was a bit of a revelation.

Maybe there actually was some sort of fairness in the universe.

Or maybe he should stop whining, because there were plenty of other people in the world born to horrible families and none of _them _got Kaworu. Only a tiny fraction of them had any chance of getting replacement families as wonderful as his too, but still, he got a Kaworu. That made up for a hell of a lot.

Actually, in the grand scheme of things… Maybe he had a lot to be thankful for, on the whole. Not that he was going to thank his parents for bringing him into this world, since it was really more 'in spite of' than 'because of,' and if there was a God other than Tabris then Shinji really did owe him a prog knife to the gut for all those other people who experienced horrible suffering thanks to the bullshit that was the Secret Dead Sea Scrolls and _weren't _given their very own Kaworu as compensation, but still.

He was actually incredibly lucky, wasn't he.

He couldn't stop smiling like a fool.

"You okay, man?" Touji asked, because seeing a smile like that on the face of the senior Eva pilot? That just didn't happen.

"I'm okay. I'm a lot more than okay. I mean, literally the only thing I could possibly complain about in our relationship is that he has a lot more stamina than I do." To be fair to Shinji, part of that was that Tabris couldn't, well, until they merged, and he wasn't going to do that until Shinji was satisfied too.

He did have a lot of problems, like what he was going to do about Rei and Armisael and how he was going to take care of this without his family finding out that he and Tabris were merging, but his relationship with Kaworu wasn't one of them.

Too much information. "It's our fault for asking," Touji said, groaning. "We just thought that, well, _somebody _should ask, right?"

"Trust me, I have plenty of overprotective parents and siblings." Even with Kaji gone. "It's Tabris one of you should be worried about."

"What, he won't like us asking questions?"

"No, because Rei is the little sister he would have gotten to keep if he wasn't worried the old men would have her killed so she didn't disrupt their scenario." The first person Tabris ever met who was like him: he must have hoped that she would be his friend, and he could teach her all the wonderful things he'd found.

Kensuke looked at Touji, since he was the one who knew about little sisters.

Touji clasped his hands together and bowed at Kensuke over them. "It's been an honor serving with you." You dead man walking, you. "I've heard that people in love try to make other people hook up, but if he's even half-human, there's no way that applies to little sisters."

"He just wants her to be happy," Shinji said, annoyed on Kaworu's behalf. "I mean, I'm the one that grew up with her," well, more, since Rei was at NERV for the first few years, "and I don't mind her dating. Her or Asuka."

"Who would date Asuka?" Touji wanted to know. "You'd have to be crazier than us pilots!"

"You're just saying that because of Hikari." Kensuke rolled his eyes.

Touji tried to ignore that. "Anyway, Asuka's gay, isn't she?"

"She was at least half-serious about Kaji so she had to at least be bi… Wait, you thought she was after Hikari?" Shinji blinked at the realization: at first the idea was stunningly wrong, but in hindsight it explained so much.

"How was I supposed to compete with that?" Touji protested. "And it's not like plenty of the sergeants weren't," doing stuff with the lower-ranked beta-type pilots. "Hikari and I were friends for years, and then Asuka just swoops in and…"

"Around the time rank assignments were given." Around when Hikari would have started distancing herself from Touji. "Look, the people Asuka was attracted to besides Kaji were me and Rei, if that's any help. That's why she went berserk about us until she finally managed to start getting along with Rei after one of the abomination battles. If she'd been attracted to Hikari, they wouldn't have gotten along so well." Since Asuka wasn't handling the new feelings very well: she hated anything outside her control, anything that disrupted her mental state and thus her performance, and her anger at the disruption just disrupted her _more _and thus made her more pissed off. "I think she's over Rei now, though: they're getting along too well." For Asuka to still be interested in her as anything other than a sort of cousin. Alternatively she might have just grown up: it wasn't like Shinji'd been paying attention.

Touji and Asuka, rivals over Hikari at least in Touji's mind: how had he missed that? Possibly because he was avoiding everything to do with Asuka, but still… Yeah, Shinji thought, he was still no Kaji.

"I told him that Hikari wasn't interested in her like that," Kensuke said, sighing.

"Well, Asuka's damn hot, man! Don't you have eyes?" Touji demanded. "Back me up here, Shinji: some people are just that hot, right? Like, you know," he finished awkwardly, scratching the back of his head.

No, Shinji didn't… Wait, was he talking about Kaworu?

In theory, Shinji knew that people being attracted to Kaworu was natural, no, inevitable. Humanity was the angel Lilim, and angels were attracted to seeds, so any human who claimed to feel no attraction to Kaworu whatsoever was obviously lying. But someone that he actually knew, someone that Kaworu was in irregular contact with (although always with Shinji there) admitting that they were attracted to Kaworu? _His _Kaworu?

It was making part of him want to remind Touji that Shinji had a gun, access to Ritsuko's knives and the dark caverns of NERV's echoing interior structure were an excellent place to hide bodies.

"After the concert at the cultural festival, all of us thought you were tapping that," Kensuke said bluntly. "And that was why you weren't even looking at any of the girls in our class."

"But…" Wait, people…

Shinji realized that people must have assumed that he and Kaworu were an item for years, in that cute little childhood sweethearts sense. After all, they did everything together: until he was sent to school Shinji was never out of the house without either his family or Kaworu, so the people he knew through music wouldn't have seen him without Kaworu there.

He felt a little cheated, somehow. If someone had pointed out to him that he and Kaworu made a cute couple, then maybe they could have… Well, no, they were only barely old enough now, but how often had Shinji wished there was some way he could make sure to keep Kaworu forever? "I thought the people in our class weren't… I mean, I am who I am."

"Aren't you the one who keeps insisting that you're not _their _son, you're the Commander's? And you're _Misato Katsuragi's little brother_?" Now Touji was the one looking at him as though he was insane. "Didn't you figure out that we didn't take that as seriously as you did? Come on, man, everyone there got some of that kind of hate." For their contamination level. "Not as bad as you sure, but you're one of the Numbered Series Pilots, you're a Fuyutsuki, you're rich and you're not bad looking."

"First you say that about Kaworu, now about me…"

"Sorry to break it to you," Kensuke told him, "but Shinji, and I say this as your friend… You look like a girl. I've got enough footage of you and Rei: if it weren't for her coloring and the fact you're a guy, you'd be identical twins. A lot of people thought it explained a lot when you showed up to that thing with Kaworu."

"I do _not _look like a girl!" Shinji protested, blushing.

"Man… You do. You really do," Touji said, trying to give Shinji a consoling look, but no, there wasn't any getting out of this. "At least you're a hot one, not like my ugly mug? Between you and Asuka, half the class was questioning their sexuality. Everyone in your family is hot. Even your dad has that distinguished look going for him." He coughed. "According to Hikari, anyway."

"There are people who _didn't _have crushes on Misato Katsuragi growing up?" Kensuke asked rhetorically. "Practically every girl I knew, before," before his contamination level was tested and he was brought here, "was in her fan club."

"Not that you'd have the courage to talk to a girl unless it was about military hardware or Eva specs," Touji said, clapping him on the shoulder. Kensuke quickly retaliated with an elbow to the solar plexus, and Shinji realized that they'd never tried that with him. Good, because while he was used to contact from his family, and Kaworu, he still hadn't quite adjusted to the fact these people were apparently his friends. He didn't want to knife anyone on reflex.

It still made him feel a little sad, and really unappreciative that he hadn't really noticed that he had friends.

He really _had _been out of it, failing to watch his back or much of anything after Kaworu left, hadn't he? No wonder Kaworu was so worried in that letter.

"But you two keep _cuddling _in front of people, and do you know what that looks like?" Touji said when he got his breath back. "If you really wanted me to get with Hikari, then you'd stop being so hot like that right in front of her. How am I supposed to compete with that?"

"Well, I guess." It was kind of unfair to expect anyone to pay attention to someone who was only human when Kaworu was in the room. Well, Shinji could pay attention to music, but he remembered how often the Maestro had to scold the other students to focus on their music. Back then, Shinji thought that was his fault for being distracting and a celebrity, but since Kaworu always sat next to him, maybe Shinji was mistaken about just who they were glancing at.

…Wait a minute. Asuka got upset easily at people she was attracted to, so what did it mean that she'd practically become rivals with Kaworu? It was Asuka barging in when Shinji was trying to practice with Kaworu that finally made him go to his dad and get her kicked out of his music room. Was it really Shinji that she'd been interested in the way Misato and Kaji hoped (for the sake of producing the next generation of their badass trio)? Had she viewed Kaworu as her rival for Shinji, Shinji as her rival for Kaworu, or both?

She might not even have thought it that far through herself, Shinji knew, especially when most of her thoughts were for someone else.

Why hadn't he realized this before? Noticed how much potential competition for Kaworu he had?

Judging from the panic trying to rise inside him, because he hadn't wanted to notice it.

Kaworu was his music partner, and they would perform and sink into comfortable obscurity together. Provided Shinji survived. The thought of Shinji getting married had never really even crossed his mind, because relationships like that weren't something he was going to have, but the possibility that Kaworu might fall in love with someone and get married, because Kaworu was someone people would fall in love with: that hadn't occurred to him either, and it should have.

That Kaworu could find someone better. There were lots of better people in the world than the son of two monsters.

That wasn't going to happen, right? Shinji thought almost frantically. Kaworu wouldn't just leave him (not like his parents, Kaworu was nothing like them), right?

He and Kaworu were always going to be together, weren't they?

Oh.

Right.

Destiny.

Kaworu was supposed to fall in love with _him_, not anyone else.

That was a relief, and maybe he should be a little thankful to that prophet (Kaworu's father, huh?), but now, Shinji realized, he needed to make sure that if he ever did kill Kaworu, it wouldn't be because he'd fallen into some kind of jealous rage.

Because just the _thought _of losing Kaworu to anyone else?


	27. A Summer's Eve

Figuring out the hyperspace (or Dirac Space, technically) thing let Kaworu just pop right over, which Shinji appreciated since it meant he got to see Kaworu more often. Flying thousands of kilometers back and forth took valuable time and Tabris was a ruler, even if he could teleconference _really impressively. _Intelligence appreciated it since as heart-attack-inducing as the capability to essentially teleport almost anywhere near-instantly was, at least the power surge was very easy to both detect and ID as Tabris instead of the cherubim or another angel or something. So it let them know where he was, which meant he wasn't sneaking through Tokyo-2 or anything like that.

If it weren't for that capability, then Kaworu coming here during what amounted to an hour-long lunch break couldn't have happened. Even near-divine absolute rulers had meetings. Sure, Kaworu could teleconference, but being with Shinji instead of being physically there with them wouldn't reassure people who might be worried that Tabris would abandon them because of Shinji.

"After sharing this with you, I am only more determined to reunite them with their lost loved ones," Kaworu said as he reached into the picnic basket. An early lunch for him could work as dinner for Shinji. "Even though the way is not as clear as it once seemed, my dedication has only grown stronger. To fail the Lilim is to fail you: there is no conflict."

As much as Shinji wanted to make lunch for Kaworu again (they'd taken breaks for food during long practice sessions tons of times, so Shinji had started getting food ready himself), it was safer for Tabris if he bought food from home. Shinji understood, but it still made him ache a little that Kaworu couldn't trust the food from Shinji's home. That Shinji's place of safety, where he was loved, was still enemy territory for the person he loved most.

Trained by Kaji, Shinji had thought of disguising himself to go out and buy ingredients, watch everything like a hawk to make sure that no one tampered with his creations, but what if Kaworu trusted him and ate, and someone _had _managed to slip something past Shinji?

If something happened to Kaworu because he'd trusted Shinji? There was just no way he could forgive himself.

Watching Kaworu unpack the elaborate lunch, though? At least he'd get to feed Kaworu, but the lunch really was elaborate. Tabris' kitchen staff was clearly showing off, and Shinji wasn't sure if that was to make a good impression on him or to try to intimidate him: did they know that Shinji would prefer to feed Kaworu his amateur creations?

Shinji wanted to be the one to look after Kaworu, but there were already people whose jobs were looking after him, so he expected that there was going to be a bit of conflict there until they came to some agreement.

The part about Kaworu being prophesized to die because of Shinji, though, really wasn't going to help.

"I told them that loving you simply gave me more understanding of what it meant for the Lilim to lose a loved one. All this has made me more determined to reunite them with their loved ones," Kaworu said, finally sitting down on the three blankets Shinji had already spread out to protect Kaworu's formal Council robes from any possibility of grass stains.

Reuniting them with their loved ones? Shinji gave him a look that was somewhere between curious and dismayed. "You still…"

"Of course." Kaworu frowned at him a little. "I won't give up on granting the Lilim eternal happiness. That is the promise that was made to my people: that is the promise _I _made to my people. If complementation necessarily destroys individual identity, then it won't fulfill that promise, and another way must be found to keep it. Misato Katsuragi and Kaji cannot be reunited if both those individual selves no longer exist. I possess eternity: I can't keep such a blessing for myself. For me to live on eternally while all of you live short lives full of pain and die without knowing happiness? How could I do that to the Lilim? How could I condemn you who I love to that fate? That is what Keel promised me, that is what SEELE used to tempt the Lilim, but they _are _noble goals, the wishes of so many of the Lilim. _My _goals, the ones I have chosen for myself. I won't abandon my responsibilities. I thought you knew this."

What his eyes said was, 'Shinji… Not you too.' Surely Shinji didn't think that Kaworu was abandoning his people for temporal power, or because he didn't want to die? Did Shinji really think that Kaworu was someone who could abandon billions of people to loneliness and death as long as Kaworu himself was happy?

"Right, it's still weird that you think of Third Impact as a good thing… not the kind that would happen if you took back Adam's body," Shinji hurried to correct himself, because of course Kaworu would rather die than just kill everyone, "but the… the 'human instrumentality' stuff." Granting humans divinity. That was what SEELE called themselves when they were fooling the UN, the Committee for Human Instrumentality, claiming that they wanted to make humans better instead of revealing that they'd killed billions of humans because they weren't good enough."I suppose I was just thinking of it as a last resort," since that was the way the UN population would see it, "but for you guys it's really the goal, isn't it?" Just to do it properly.

Though after SEELE lied and claimed that Tabris reaching Lilith, her empty shell instead of the half possessed by Yui Ikari, would grant the Lilim eternal communion and the immortality of the white tree? When that would have overwritten the minds of the entire human race, erasing all their souls and data by turning them into blank LCL, nothing but raw material for Tabris' children?

Kaworu wanted to make sure that the ritual SEELE had _really _been planning would actually work. He was perfectly willing to help restore the areas rendered barren by the spread of the Dead Sea of LCL as a goodwill gesture and to keep any Lilim from starving while the research was being done, but he hadn't really changed his mind. He just didn't want to stop there.

He might have turned against the old members of SEELE and devoured them, but even if he'd rebelled against their true goals, he hadn't rebelled against the ideals they'd taught him. The idealism they'd faked, the hope of paradise they'd given their followers. Those followers who saw Tabris as their hope of seeing their loved ones again, of knowing eternal bliss, and Kaworu was too kind and generous to want to disappoint them.

Keel had wanted Tabris to grow up into someone kind who would never betray anyone in order to keep the angel from betraying _them_. They had wrought better than they knew, far better than they deserved, and really Shinji just thought that Kaworu would have been a kind person no matter what. Even if Kaworu had been kept isolated the way SEELE planned, he still would have chosen to die instead of to destroy the Lilim, right?

He still would have fallen in love with Shinji, and was love supposed to hurt like this? Was Shinji supposed to get an ache in his chest every time he thought of how perfect, how wonderful Kaworu was? That this wonderful person wanted to be with him?

Shinji actually _was _trying to corrupt Tabris, to destroy that faith: why was he so surprised by the reminder that the things that Shinji saw as the focus of their planning, Armisael's children and restoring the soil without Third Impact, Tabris saw as back-up plans? Third Impact would get rid of the LCL, allow him to reformat the entire world into a paradise. Wouldn't it be a good thing to make all humans immortal, like him? Wouldn't it be wonderful for Kaji and Misato to be reunited? If everyone got their loved ones back, if no one had to grieve anymore, wouldn't that go a long way towards curing the hatred born of grief that was still making humans attack each other even a decade after the revelation of SEELE's betrayal of the human race?

The son of the Ikaris didn't believe that happy endings were something that could possibly come from anything _they _had anything to do with. From the Evas GEHIRN made to screw over the world, from the ritual SEELE designed.

Kaworu, though, still wanted to believe. For everyone's sake. That people could be happy.

The only reason he hadn't already caused Third Impact, Shinji reminded himself, was that Kaworu wanted to be sure that it would work right. Couldn't afford to fail. For everyone's sake. He wanted to be sure that he could make everyone happy.

He couldn't give up his dream, couldn't stop wishing that there was a way to make everyone happy.

"If there's just no way, then there's just no way, right?" Shinji asked awkwardly, because if there wasn't any ritual that would just make everything perfect like that?

"If there is no way, then a way must be made," Kaworu said, red eyes meeting Shinji's, not a trace of doubt or compromise in their depths. "I have time now: thousands and tens of thousands of years, if need be. Adam was billions of years old, and his soul is no weaker now than when it first came into being. I will not fail the Lilim." He closed his eyes for a moment. "I will not fail you, Shinji."

"But what if the reason that we're not immortal is that it's just incompatible?" Shinji attempted. "I mean, it's one thing to live forever if you're not really aware of the passage of time, but all those memories, that boredom…"

"If individual Lilim eventually decide to choose their deaths, that is their right," Tabris agreed, and Shinji realized that he'd thought about this already. "I've wondered if someday, this soul might grow weary of thought. As long as I am with you, I will always be filled with joy, but if you ever grow weary… I thought we might find an empty world together, and become one." He smiled.

A final union, a _real _union. The kind that would terraform a world, but leave them unable to separate. Shinji's fragment of Lilith's soul and Tabris' consciousness dissolving into the great soul of Adam. Their love becoming the foundation of a new world.

Not anytime soon. Just if they ever got tired of living.

As a loyal citizen of the UN, as someone raised to fight the abominations, Shinji probably should have found that a disgusting thought. Yet the thought of being eternally one with Kaworu? They wouldn't be able to separate, awaken, talk anymore, but wouldn't it be like sleeping? To sleep next to each other, curled up together, until there was no place where one ended and the other began. To share the same dreams until the end of the universe.

That aside, "Why would you even think that I was no longer committed to granting my people's wishes?" was what Tabris wanted to know. "Is there some weakness, some lack of hope or dedication in my heart?" Had Shinji seen something like that while they were one? Not that Tabris was going to talk about that here, when security cameras and hidden watchers were the price of having an outdoor picnic at the Fuyutsuki Manor. "Is there something I'm doing, something I've said that is making you and my people doubt me?" Because it hurt Tabris that they'd even think something like that about him. Tabris saw giving up on Instrumentality as betraying all of the Lilim: did they really think he would do that?

When billions of Lilim had died for the sake of his creation? When Lilim had cared for him, and taught him, and given him their trust? Did they really think he would repay them so poorly?

Shinji shook his head, reaching out to put a hand on one of Tabris', where it rested in his lap. "I just… We're so close that I guess I forgot that we don't see eye-to-eye on everything. It's not like we don't both want humanity to survive," Shinji almost said they had the same goals, but that would be a little too easy for the watchers to take the wrong way, "but your opinion of instrumentality and mine are very different." To say the least. "To Refuge it's something to look forward to, the day you all were promised, but to us it's something to be feared." Something to fight against with all the strength they had, even in the face of Tabris' essentially-godlike power. "So hearing that to you, I'm a reason to cause Third Impact… It's a little disturbing. I don't want to be a reason someone like you would kill. I know that's not how you see it, but it's how we do."

"I won't let it be death," Kaworu promised him, "but that's because I won't let you die." Wouldn't let all the Lilim die, either turned to raw LCL or dying with their barren world. "You are so precious to me, Shinji. You are all so precious to me," and now Kaworu's eyes were wet.

If Kaworu hadn't pulled Shinji to him, hadn't tucked that brown head under his chin, Shinji would have had to do the same to Kaworu.

It was nice to be held. Kaworu wasn't squeezing him, he was just feeling that Shinji was there. Shinji could hear Kaworu's heartbeat slow, and he felt his cheeks flush with embarrassed happiness that he could calm Kaworu like this.

"I was born to meet you," Tabris said softly. "Yes, my other purpose was to split Adam's soul, reduce the power of his rage and shield earth from his vengeance as he was damaged before he could properly awaken, but the reason they allowed me to grow up, did not keep this soul transferring between blank vessels by killing them as they developed personalities was so that there would be an 'I' to meet _you_. One that knew enough to recognize your greatness. The strength and nobility in your kindness."

"I'm not a very kind person," Shinji said shamefully. Wouldn't Kaworu know that? He'd seen how Shinji hurt Rei's feelings.

A sigh, felt more than heard as Kaworu's breath ruffled his hair. "You are."

Oh, right. Shinji was the one who should know that Kaworu wasn't going to budge on this.

"You didn't avoid my sister because of what she was, but because of who she was connected to. You never blamed her for her origins, but isn't it only natural," for the Lilim, "to avoid things which cause pain? True, this hurt you both: not reaching out to her cost you the joy you could have shared."

"Misato has this talk about how people are hedgehogs and you're going to get pricked. Because that's just what happens: it doesn't mean there's anything wrong with you, or that they're trying to hurt you. Because people aren't puzzle pieces that fit together perfectly: there are always going to be rough edges. If you know someone doesn't want to hurt you, if you trust them, then it will hurt more and you'll feel more betrayed when they end up hurting you, even if it's an accident. For me, though, people do want to lure me in so that they can kill me." And this wasn't helping: now the people who thought he'd betray them to SEELE had been joined by the people who wanted to kill him to protect Tabris. Or because they were jealous that Shinji was first in their god-child's affections. "But it's actually kind of reassuring, I guess? That _everyone _has trouble making friends and getting along? I may have a harder time, but there's an actual reason for that. It's not just me, and it's not anything that's about _me_. This is something that everyone goes through, even if their parents weren't monsters." Even if they weren't someone that people saw as a monster, Shinji for his contamination level (the highest found so far) and Tabris because he was an abomi-an angel.

"And I hurt you by reminding you of our role in that which you have fought." One of Kaworu's hands began to trail down his back, gently tapping each of Shinji's vertebrae. "I do not think that any fate that led us to each other could possibly be an evil fate."

Shinji had to smile. "Honestly? I was thinking the same thing yesterday… but then I thought of all the people who don't get Kaworus."

"Their goal was for my soul to be part of the complementation, my essence shared among all of you," Tabris reminded him.

"Just because I'm happy I have you doesn't mean I want to share you with everyone else," Shinji told him, but he couldn't help smiling. "Just the opposite, actually."

Kaworu laughed softly, and Shinji had to join him. "The selfishness of the Lilim."

"More like love means I don't want you to die," Shinji said, because dismissing anything anyone did as just because they were Lilim? There really wasn't any word for it but racist, he admitted to himself, and wished he could punch Keel. "One Kaworu, spread among billions of people…" Would be such a tiny fraction of the mass mind, lost in the whole. "All that would mean is that no one would get a Kaworu. Just enough of a taste to show them what they were missing. It's cruel." His nose found Kaworu's neck, and he wanted to mouth at it except there were watchers and the point of this was to feed Kaworu. It wasn't like Kaworu needed to eat, but if he didn't then he'd have to sit there hungry during those meetings, Lilim body unhappy it wasn't getting the food his stomach thought it needed.

Oh, "Misato says we used to remind her of puppies, when you dragged me to do something outside the music room," Shinji remarked as he picked up one of the little sandwiches. Leaving out the part about how Misato considered Tabris, back when they fought, one of those teeny yappy dogs people kept in purses. Although normally those dogs tried to bark incessantly and bite people, while Tabris would rather jump on people and at least wish he could kiss them enthusiastically hello (or slobber all over them, that was how Misato put it).

The sandwiches… Was this High Tea? That might be what was in the thermos, then.

"In what sense? Affection or clumsiness?" Kaworu smiled, before opening his mouth for Shinji. After swallowing, he said that, "I was very clumsy when I was small, although not in the same way as a child that was learning how to move for the first time. I kept underestimating how far I had to reach to pick things up, and they had to scold me until I started picking things up at all instead of standing still and using my AT field." He took another sandwich, and Shinji let himself be fed. "I didn't start learning to walk or even to crawl on my own: I would lay or sit there and hope people would pick me up until they pushed me to learn. Leaving the lab… it was a revelation to me that leaving the lab was something that could possibly happen. Leaving where I was kept. That I would be brought to new surroundings, instead of just staying where I was kept. Arriving at new places, and being told to _explore_… It was a stunning delight.

"And now I can go wherever I wish: I can go to your side whenever I wish." Because it wasn't like there was much anyone could do to stop him. "It makes me understand what you meant when you asked if I enjoyed taking the train from the embassy to here because it was… not what those who wish to control me would have liked?" Naughty, flouting the power of the UN?

Shinji's eyes darkened as he remembered Lilith, pinned up there, and thought of how Adam was imprisoned at the south pole, helpless while people like Shinji's parents _did things _to his body (her body, technically), and if anyone ever even thought about doing things like that to Kaworu… "Being free." Just being free and enjoying life made Tabris feel naughty, because he wasn't supposed to get to experience those things?

The ancient people that made Adam and Lilith, the souls that became Rei and Kaworu: they really had been bastards, hadn't they.

Finding another small sandwich pressed to his lips made him blush with happiness more than surprise: this was supposed to be Kaworu's break, but of course Kaworu liked taking care of him too.

Even knowing that they were watched, and that some of those people might have unfriendly intentions towards _his Kaworu_, it was still too easy for Shinji to forget about all of that. To look at his angel's warm red eyes, his lips with a little crumb sticking to the corner of them (a bit of human imperfection that invited Shinji to touch those lips to wipe or lick it away) and forget what he'd been about to say, just, "I want to make you bento." He wanted to take care of the person that was more precious to him than anything else, even his family.

"You could come to my home, and use the kitchen there," Kaworu offered with a trace of shyness, because he knew what that would mean. "Just for a day, or a few hours?" Surely the UN would let Shinji come back to his home afterwards instead of imprisoning him or exiling him?

Shinji was pretty sure of that, but, "Not yet." He still had to talk to Rei.

Soon, though, the hand that pushed back Kaworu's lengthening silver hair promised. Long enough to be unruly, but not long enough yet to be tied back: Shinji almost wanted it to stay this length, it was so endearing.

He was sure he'd like it when it was even longer, though. Because it was Kaworu's hair, and that made it impossible for Shinji to dislike it. Except when it hid Kaworu's eyes.


	28. Touch the Sky

Standing in what was probably Tabris' sitting room, Shinji tried to ignore his current state of undress and the number of people in the room who weren't Kaworu.

Glancing in Kaworu's direction instantly got his attention, and the angel (because he was an angel regardless of what anyone said) looked up from the papers spread out on the small writing desk to smile, just for Shinji. Not in an 'I share your pain' way, but an 'it will be alright' way.

Kaworu had gotten used to this kind of thing, Shinji supposed. It was a little weird that originally Kaworu was so worried about showing any skin beneath the neck in front of Shinji when he was used to this, but different contexts? Maybe because Shinji was more important to him than people like this?

Shinji hoped it wasn't that Kaworu thought Shinji was more likely to reject him than these people.

"Doing alright, Your Highness?"

Shinji nodded shortly, trying not to move any unnecessary muscles in the hope that would make this go quicker.

"We'll be done soon. The good news is that you've grown since your last public appearance in that plugsuit."His cheeks already dusted with pink, Shinji blushed harder at the reminder that plugsuits didn't really leave much to the imagination as the man went on to say, "but we made allowances for that and we're used to adjusting His Holiness' clothes for the proper fit."

Tabris nodded as Shinji contemplated that fact that since he wasn't done growing, even though these people were taking so many measurements, even having Shinji stretch and flex, they were going to have to do it again in… how many months had it been since he made a public appearance in his plugsuit?

"There," the man said, finally satisfied. As though that was some cue one of the assistants floating around handed him a robe, which he passed to Shinji.

As he hurriedly put it on, sliding his arms through the sleeves and pulling it around his waist maybe a little too enthusiastically (really, he'd been given briefs so it wasn't all that much worse than what some people wore to swim?) Shinji noticed that the robe was a warm brown with trim and embroidery in gold, or maybe bronze?

Either way, Shinji knew even without getting a clear look at the embroidery that this had been made for him, not for Tabris. He might not know about colors and makeup the way Kaworu did, but wouldn't they wash him out? Unless it was like the way wearing blue made Shinji's eyes stand out more, look more blue? If people could pick up the color of what was around them, instead of just having it contrast, then maybe these colors were chosen so that Kaworu would look good standing next to Shinji?

That made him imagine an old, dark wood-paneled room. A room like that would be incredibly expensive these days: the loss of the Amazon and Africa plus the need for farmland had driven up the price of wood, and before then paper recycling, plus people not wanting to cut down trees on general principles had made people plant fewer trees, so hardwoods like mahogany and cherry that took a long time to grow were just ridiculously expensive.

Shinji doubted any expense had been spared on Kaworu's palace, but judging from Kaworu's rooms at the embassy and SEELE's general look, they'd probably gone for marble instead. Black and shimmery white. So he wasn't that likely to ever see Kaworu in a room like that. Even if Refuge's capital was high enough up that they still got snow once every few years, so there might be a fireplace, right?

Probably not, since most of the complex was underground, but Kaworu by firelight, the red and gold flickering casting patterns of warm light on his face, surrounded by wood like that of their instruments…

"We'll have preliminary sketches for you and His Holiness tomorrow," the head of Tabris' wardrobe promised, "and fittings can take place the day after you've approved some initial designs."

"That soon?" Shinji wondered.

"We already acquired all the necessary materials," in colors that suited Shinji, clearly. "Embroidery takes longer than that, but His Holiness thought you'd prefer less elaborate designs?" The slight smile in the corner of the man's mouth made it clear that they'd see about _that_, but, "Embroidery can be added onto existing clothing in stages, if there's anything from the first wardrobe we put together that you want to keep." Which he clearly doubted. "For now, we'll see about making sure you have _something_ to wear." Something that wouldn't embarrass Tabris.

"I don't know about elaborate or not," plugsuits were surprisingly elaborate, with a lot of wires under the surface and what Shinji could only term 'thingies' that monitored the pilot's health and everything. "But a lot of the clothes kings and princes wore…" He thought of ermine and other furs in portraits of European rulers. Layers and layers of court kimono, "look too hot."

"Yes, that is a concern." He frowned, but not at Shinji. "His Holiness is something of a trendsetter, so we've been forced to make sure his clothing is… Well, at least mostly practical, no one's going to go tramping through the woods in white-on-white silk embroidery, it magnetically attracts dirt and leaf mould – No, actually, I'm not kidding. Not entirely. Silk has some odd properties: yes it's an insulator, but…" A wave of a hand indicated that was neither here nor there. "He requested that we make sure he set a good example, even though the degree of control he has over his body means that he could wear costumes that would give even ancient northern monarchs heatstroke."

"There are parts of our mountains where it's necessary for Lilim to be warmly dressed," Tabris said, looking thoughtfully down at one of the letters on his desk, "But when I wore thicker robes, and velvets… We do produce wool, but fabrics like that aren't as good for people in warmer climates as silk, cotton, or linen. In the days before Third Impact they made a lot of fibers from oil, but with so many oil wells either converted into LCL," oil, made from ancient plants, was organic matter, "or inaccessible," the oceans turning to LCL made offshore oil rigs _much _less practical and more expensive, if it was even possible to build new ones without the LCL getting in there and destroying all the oil, "petrochemicals would have been rationed even if Refuge had better sources of them."

These days nylon was considered semi-antique and expensive. There was some progress being made designing inorganic plastics, like the material used for plugsuits, but if comfort was anywhere on the priority list it was somewhere near the bottom. The world urgently needed materials that could survive LCL exposure.

Refuge got a lot of its fuel from oil palms, which the UN was pissed about since oil palms were not good for the environment and Refuge was sitting on what would eventually be the last arable land on earth.

Not that this even made the top ten list of things the UN was furious with Refuge about, and to be fair to Tabris' government, one of the reports in Kaji's office indicated that the press was exaggerating the negative impact of oil palms as a biofuel source.

A little.

Burning regular oil was still less bad for the environment than the cultivation of and burning of oil palms, and had been even before Second Impact, but Shinji was fairly sure that there were plenty of countries who wouldn't have hesitated to grow oil palms themselves if Refuge hadn't decided to make it their primary energy crop. At least not to bridge the gap until other energy sources came into operation and cars could be converted to electric.

"Why don't you use nuclear, anyway?" was what he wanted to know. Fifteen years after Second Impact, _no one_ except Refuge burned either petrochemicals or biofuels for energy anymore. Not when that was wasting valuable organic matter.

Before Second Impact, environmental and anti-nuke groups blocking the constructions of new nuclear power plants had forced governments to keep the old, inefficient ones without all the new safety features operating.

After Second Impact, there were large areas where there were absolutely no living things at all that could possibly be damaged even if the incredibly improbable happened and a modern plant somehow released a bit of radioactivity.

A lot of so-called 'nuclear waste' was still perfectly usable, even if being past its prime meant that it was no longer very good at the second task of early nuclear power plants, the ones that needed to be shut down and replaced with newer designs: producing weapons-grade plutonium. If anything, that made what the world used to consider nuclear waste a lot safer for everyone than 'ideal' material, since it was harder to make bombs with.

During the years that followed the Rapture, a lot of people suddenly advocated building nuclear power plants and building them _quickly_. China dropping an N2 mine on Tokyo made a lot of people worried that the global conflicts might escalate into a true WWIII, and the consensus was that the sooner they took as much plutonium as possible out of bombs and got it into new power plants, shutting down the old, dangerous and bomb-making plants in the process, the sooner everyone would be a lot safer.

Tabris had paused thoughtfully as soon as Shinji asked the question, and he slowly began to frown. "Because the construction of nuclear power plants required more skilled labor and technical expertise than farming, technical expertise that could have been devoted to the Eva project and S2 engine research. Thank you, Shinji." For asking that. And damn Keel. "I will have to do something about this. It's not as though we're short on material: when I was younger I was asked to steal quite a lot of nuclear missiles in order to make it less likely that they would be used on us."

No one wanted the last fertile land on earth to be rendered radioactive. Just like Tokyo-3 could take itself underground to survive abomination attacks, Refuge's cities had buried themselves deep in the Himalayas. At first the refugees and less valuable workers lived on the surface, but ten years had given them time to excavate more space and make it habitable.

Even though bombing cities full of civilians (if Refuge's people counted as civilians, which a lot of the UN member states either outright didn't accept or were avoiding the subject suspiciously) was perfectly acceptable tactics in 'Total Wars' like WWII, by this point even if Tabris and his AT field were taken out of the picture, it was too late. Most of Refuge's cities and _all _of the industrial base that produced potential war materials were protected by meters of solid rock, and trying to target their warmaking capability with conventional munitions was no longer an option.

That reminded Shinji of another question that had puzzled the analysts for years. "Why did you dig so deep anyway?"

"If I failed, then there would be a window between my death and SEELE managing to defeat NERV and trigger instrumentality. Of course the UN forces would have seized that opportunity to bomb and invade," Kaworu reminded Shinji, looking a little surprised.

"That's a good reason." Shinji nodded. "But was it _their _reason? From what I've read about Refuge's engineering, you guys built for sieges, not what, a few days? Why would they devote that kind of resources to building the defenses so much stronger than they had to, if they just had to last until Instrumentality?"

"We're fortunate that food stockpiles and production lasted past the promised day." Tabris closed his eyes. "Fear. That was their true goal, to create and foster fear. Just like your media. The siege preparations allowed us to maintain a hundred percent employment, especially since I could cure those who otherwise might not be able to work. Idle hands could lend themselves to work other than SEELE's," just because none of Refuge's inhabitants wanted to be killed by UN lynch mobs, that didn't mean that none of them hated SEELE for what they'd done in the Rapture. Despite the promise that Third Impact would let them see their loved ones again.

The loved ones that SEELE's crimes took from them in the first place.

"The stone walls… Like the Lilim AT field, that walls out others lest they be hurt themselves. They were a reminder of the rest of the world's hate, and helped unify our people. Us versus them, those within the walls who must work together in order to survive and those without, who wish to kill even those who had no choice. _Because _of those outsiders," and their hate. Pushing aside the air of gloom thinking of this had given him, Tabris smiled up at Shinji. "Thank you." He closed his eyes for a moment, smiling to himself now. "And this is why you are the one who shall be King of the Lilim."

Shinji blushed almost more than he had when the measuring tapes first went certain places. It wasn't that he wasn't used to having people's hands all over him: Misato used to use him as a teddy bear and a lot of times she'd been too fast asleep to really notice where she was grabbing him and when she shifted position like that Shinji often hadn't wanted to wake her. Not unless it became clear that she was having a nightmare again.

Still, there was a difference between pyjamas and being naked, and there was a difference between Misato, Kaworu and a bunch of mostly-women that he didn't know at all. Being looked at like a mannequin was better than being looked at like a piece of meat, though? Probably?

It was nice of them to already have this robe ready for him, but these were Kaworu's people. They probably didn't gossip, but…

Actually, for all Shinji knew they might. No one had ever gotten an agent close enough to Tabris to find out if his staff talked. The old saying was that loose lips sank ships: if person a talked to person b, who talked to person c, then if person d was a spy it didn't matter whether or not person a was loyal: the knowledge would get out anyways.

So especially when people were trying to get information out of Refuge, it was a matter of playing 'six degrees of someone who matters.' For a spy to infiltrate any sort of important body, staff or inner circle meant they ran the risk of running into Tabris, who personally inspected almost every group in Refuge for spies…

Or the way Shinji would have put it was that Tabris cared, and that was why he kept in touch with not just the military but the food production committees and the border village patrols and just anyone else he could talk to. Caring for people.

Wanting to make friends.

So many worshippers, but now even Shinji was a lover, not a friend, and it made him hurt for Kaworu's sake.

Suddenly the path was clear from him to Tabris instead of cluttered with people holding tape measures and fabric, so he stepped down to go to his love's side instead of trying to protest that he wasn't trying to be clever, those questions had just popped into his head. It wasn't like he'd been saving them up to make a good impression on Tabris' people, so they would hopefully gossip about how he was so intelligent and would make a good king or something.

He wasn't Kaji, but when he stepped close to take Kaworu's hand to try to make him feel better for not seeing this before himself and Kaworu reached back to him so naturally he somehow ended up raising that white silk-clad hand to his lips and kissing it, running his thumb along the back of Kaworu's fingers. He really wasn't planning any of this, it just happened because Kaworu was Kaworu and Shinji had strange, random weird thoughts and Kaworu was so kind for putting up with him and his awkwardness.

That was what Shinji was thinking, but that wasn't how it looked. Even if the blush on the fourteen-year-old's cheeks when he said, "There's a difference between having a book and reading it, right? They were old and they thought up a lot of evil stuff, and you're so kind you don't think of things like that. It's not your fault that you're still finding things you haven't fixed yet," then maybe it was princely.

Such a compassionate boy.

Just like His Holiness.

Shinji might be human and Tabris might be a higher being, but they matched. What earthly thing deserved to reach the heavens themselves, save the mountain peaks? That were so often shrouded in fog, the clouds come down to earth to softly caress it, as the hand Shinji didn't keep clasped in his reached out to slide those gentle fingers against his cheek?

They were still both boys, but those who had spent years studying human and angelic beauty and how to bring it out could already see the men they would become, in the shapes of their faces and the lines of their shoulders, in the curve of Tabris' fond smile and the light in Shinji's determined eyes.

* * *

_I'm going to take this opportunity to recommend not just XKCD, but what-if dot xkcd dot com, where the author of the webcomic answers interesting what-if questions with science. _

_I read an article by someone who studied alternative energy sources on oil palms. He admitted that he really wanted them to be okay, since it would be nice to replace fossil fuels with alternative sources including biofuels, but oil palms... No, just no. I don't remember the details - what stuck in my mind was that it's nice when someone admits to and overcomes bias - but I'm sure that clearing land for cultivation and cultivation requirements (water, etc.) were a lot of why._


	29. Brothers and Sisters

This was live.

It had to be a live broadcast.

The world did not trust the UN Government or _anyone_ enough to let it be otherwise.

There might be a few seconds' delay, local stations watching what happened ready to kill the broadcast if something went obviously, terribly wrong, like a confirmed brainwashing or mind control threat or who knew, with abominations involved. Recording it in advance and releasing a possibly-edited version, though? No way.

There probably were a lot of people who had turned off their televisions, if not crawled into bomb shelters. They could catch the reruns tomorrow if everyone else was still themselves instead of converted into orange goo or brainwashed zombies or something.

Since Shinji didn't have an Eva anymore there were going to be three stages to this, not counting the formal welcoming stuff and the goodbyes and general ending speeches.

First Rei, while Asuka waited in her Eva.

Then a short speech and interview period, UN reporters allowed to speak to Tabris for the first time in forever, while Rei returned to NERV and Naoko, readying herself for deployment.

When both Rei and Asuka were ready, _then _Armisael would be brought here.

In theory, nothing should happen. Two seeds shouldn't end the world by touching, especially without the flesh of Adam or Lilith present. Shinji was there himself when Rei and Kaworu met. Tabris had touched her a lot in the process of doing her makeup twice and hair once, and nothing happened.

The world had been told about that meeting, but in the context of Misato Katsuragi's visit to the Embassy where the bodies of the senior members of SEELE were handed over and the ambassador made some rather sweeping promises in Tabris name.

While the abomination had its way with Shinji. That was the media and public opinion for you.

Of course, since he didn't have a sex drive and hadn't known about merging then, playing music with Shinji all night probably _was _what Kaworu would have done if he'd had Shinji in his evil clutches and could do whatever he wanted to him.

Tabris playing Pretty Princess dress-up (not that he'd actually dressed her) or something with the younger humanoid abomination and Lilith's host had been mostly forgotten against a background of both world-shaking news (SEELE) and creepy scandal (bedroom stuff when Shinji hadn't even seen Kaworu's bedroom until weeks later).

Until all this and the speculation over whether the world was going to end now reminded everyone of it, anyway.

Rei might be a black seed but she was still Lilith, so out of all the abominations, she was the one that might be on their side. Maybe. So her meeting with Tabris… Well, maybe she'd resisted him, or maybe he'd already decided that she was useless and that was why he'd had her shipped to the UN. To help save the world from the other angels so he could wipe them all out himself.

According to the prophecies Rei was going to be killed by Armisael anyway, right? So it wasn't like he'd given the UN a weapon that they could use against _him_.

In theory, Armisael was useless to him too. If he did want to start Third Impact himself according to SEELE's scenario, then all the other abominations had to die first. He might have talked the UN into sparing Armisael, but was that to buy SEELE time to complete some preparations? Would he kill her now, then attack NERV to retrieve Lilith's body for the ritual?

Shinji scanned the crowd as he stood there in a suit that while new, was blessedly not scratchy. Dad had taken him to get fitted after they discovered that Shinji had grown enough that his last NERV dress uniform didn't fit anymore. There actually was one normal, UN-style suit among the clothes Tabris' people made for Shinji, one Shinji could attach his NERV insignia to, but wearing something made in Refuge in front of the entire world? It would be taken as a declaration of exactly whose side he was on, and Shinji didn't want to do that. It would be stupid, for one thing.

His Dad was giving the first speech, telling people what they already knew if they'd read the statements NERV released about what all this was about and what was and was not going to happen today.

If there was _anyone _the world trusted to tell them the truth about the abominations, it was Professor Fuyutsuki. Shinji could see half the audience calming: it looked like either the official statement sounded more credible coming from him or they hadn't actually read the official statement, just listened to commentary or read summaries edited with other people, probably with most of the boring stuff like the technical details that were why they were likely to be fine cut out.

They were still nervous: anyone here who wasn't nervous was either a fanatic or a fool. Some people just hid it better than others.

When his dad left the podium and moved to stand at one of the edges of the stage beneath the podium (Shinji hid a wince, knowing his dad's leg would be hurting by the end of the day), a representative of the Japanese government moved towards the center of that stage, or rather left of center.

For the sake of politeness and diplomacy someone had to welcome Tabris here. For various reasons NERV couldn't extend greetings to an abomination, even if this was outside the area of Tokyo-3. Officially they were just here watching to see if he'd cross the border and they should attack, doing their duty as watchful defenders of humanity. Having a UN official do it raised the question of _which _UN official, a national of what country. It would have to be someone highly-enough ranked not to be rude who didn't mind the risk of losing their position over this if anything went wrong, and those were thin on the ground.

Japan, however, was practically the UN's official 'bad boy' or semi-rogue state thanks to them giving Refuge an embassy in Tokyo-2 for the sake of streamlining the transfer of Adam's body and other items and information NERV needed. They'd already invited Refuge onto their soil, so in theory this wouldn't make things any worse. For any other country to do this would have brought hostile scrutiny: Japan was just being Japan. It wasn't as though the island nation with its coastal cities hadn't been hit harder than most northern nations by the Rapture. They were also already under suspicion of being 'tainted' because Lilith had been buried here, in and under their country since it was founded.

Ritsuko and Kaji used to debate the possibility that the Chinese nuclear strike hadn't been aimed at Tokyo-1. SEELE had released a severely edited version of the truth of Second Impact to the UN Security Council, made to make them look like the good guys and the only hope of humanity's survival. The data included the approximate location of Lilith.

Then China N2'd Tokyo, and WWIII _hadn't _started. That was pretty suspicious in and of itself, because once a nuke was launched, a Communist country hitting one of America's allies?

Had it really just been part of the confusion, chaos and violence in the aftermath of Second Impact, before the official explanation was published and people thought that other humans weren't responsible, or was China trying to destroy Lilith before she repeated Adam's explosion not all that far off China's east coast? Given what happened to Africa, Australia and South America, a second Rapture with Tokyo-1 as its supposed epicenter? Outside of mountain regions, it would take a miracle like the one that saved Misato Katsuragi for there to be _any _Chinese survivors, and the Japanese archipelago would have been wiped off the map. It was even possible that some of Japan's own government had known: one city, or their entire country? One city, or as much as half of the world's surviving population?

Now the world knew that destroying their progenitor Lilith would destroy the human race, but _that _connection wasn't in the report SEELE originally gave the UN. Had the members of the Security Council even made a deal? China was on the other side of the Sea of Japan, but America's west coast, already battered by the first tsunami, was on the other side of the Atlantic. South America sheltered them from most of the Rapture, but there was nothing in the Pacific but a few scattered islands. Japan's position on the Ring of Fire wouldn't have helped. Some of the conspiracy theorists had computer modeled the effects of an explosion even half as strong as Adam's on the tectonic plates, trying to figure out what kind of earthquakes would result, and it wasn't pretty.

It was unlikely at this point that the world would ever know the truth: the officers responsible for the launch had either committed suicide or been executed (accounts varied) and the original Security Council members who were told even that fraction of the truth and hid it from the world had all died, one way or another, and been replaced well before Professor Fuyutsuki revealed the truth himself. The N2 hit while Japan's parliament was in session, decapitating the country long enough to keep any significant counterattacks from being made before they were talked down in the name of preventing all-out nuclear war. In theory that would be the right thing for them to do if they'd agreed to this attack, dying with their people.

That was the conspiracy theory, but the Japanese population hadn't agreed to anything and the UN's advisors, at least, had certainly known that Lilith was harmless. It wasn't as though most of Tokyo's population hadn't already died in the tsunami, but the symbolism of using an N2 weapon on one of Japan's cities in order to prevent a worse catastrophe was already a touchy subject.

Most of China believed that its leaders had acted to protect the country, judging from what they knew at the time, and that had just deepened the rift between the two countries.

Knowing that the angels' target was in their own country was only half the reason for Japan's buildup, and its more unpleasant Nationalist fringe groups had a depressing amount of power even today. They didn't have a lot of airlift or other capability to get all those tanks off their islands, but the US was still their ally. It was practically the only country left on earth willing to invest a significant amount of money in a surface navy when modern technology rendered surface navies obsolete as weapons of war, in addition to the ick factor of sailing through the Dead Sea of LCL. It was the ships that were in port at the time of Second Impact that were destroyed by the tsunami: relatively few ships at sea were destroyed, which was part of the original explanation for how on earth Misato Katsuragi survived.

The United States was _the _country that produced the most food. Having a surface navy meant having armed ships that could make sure that food reached its destination despite the pirate fleets that sprung up in the wake of Second Impact.

The US army was practically gutted. Since it couldn't operate on US soil, a lot of its personnel and budget were transferred over to the National Guard to put down the mass religious riots, Navy and Air Force (to build more planes to airlift people and supplies). Everyone knew that aircraft carriers were obsolete and that the US armed forces could no longer compete with the UN forces… Except that they still had enough submarines and missile defense systems to defend that surface navy long enough to, say, ferry the JSDF across the Sea of Japan.

It was the US Navy that shipped Unit 02 from Germany to Japan. They still maintained relatively close ties with Japan even though Japan was considered somewhat tainted by association with SEELE because a surface navy that traveled all over the world needed ports where it could dock to restock supplies and repair pirate damage, but absolutely no US officials were present at this meeting, including US-born UN personnel.

There were reporters, of course, but thanks to the press' perceived role in fanning up the religious conflicts that followed the Rapture and the anti-religious conflicts that followed Fuyutsuki's revelation, the US government's opinion of reporters was pretty close to NERV's. And Shinji's, for that matter. That they were evil traffickers in human misery and only the refusal to sink to the fearmongers' level (or jail time) kept them from shooting the bastards. Well, that and the fact that free traffic of information was the only thing protecting them from organizations like SEELE and their poisonous secrets. It was the press that got Fuyutsuki's truth out there. If only they hadn't played it for all it was worth.

Refuge would probably only have a fraction of the population it did, for one thing.

The US government still wanted intelligence and their population wanted news too, and only letting newsies go instead of sending officials was probably the equivalent of the UN letting Japan handle the welcoming committee.

With a few seconds to go until Tabris' arrival, Shinji glanced over at Hyuga, in among the crowd of guests, to see if he'd noticed anything. Then he looked to Misato, just because.

The AT field detector went off a second before the darkness of Dirac Space appeared at the spot someone had marked with a duct tape X so Tabris knew to appear there and didn't startle anyone.

He arose out of the darkness, glowing with a soft, pale light, and Shinji had to stop himself from just forgetting all the instructions, protocol and choreography of it all to just go to Kaworu's side.

After the portal disappeared from under his feet, Kaworu dropped lightly to the ground. Now that he was no longer levitating the glow ceased and the AT field detector stopped going off. Since that alarm sound certainly wasn't the typical alarm sound, Shinji wondered who had picked out that noise. Probably Ritsuko.

Kaworu was the one to smile at the Japanese representative and thank them for having him here: it annoyed Shinji a little that Kaworu was never actually _welcomed_ during that conversation, just _permitted_, and yet Kaworu was being gracious and grateful for even that. It made Shinji want to stick up for him but this wasn't the time and really, this was a good precedent, wasn't it?

People were taking risks giving Kaworu even this much, even letting him see his sisters. Shinji _knew _that, and he had to keep it in mind. Be fair to people even when they were being unfair to his Kaworu.

The way the man hesitated just a fraction of a second to extend his hand for Kaworu to shake shouldn't make his blood boil, especially when Kaworu covered it so gracefully by tucking his clearly-gloved hands in the sleeves of his robe and exchanging bows instead.

The diplomat retreated, and now, "Rei," Kaworu said, and Shinji felt himself calm as he heard his love's happiness.

"I am happy to see you again under circumstances like this," Rei said, bowing herself, and Shinji was really glad that since he wasn't a serving pilot (couldn't pilot without an Eva) he didn't have to wear his plugsuit the way Rei was.

"I did not know that you were meant to fall in battle. Not then," Kaworu said sadly, and Shinji was sure at least some of the people doing commentary would pick up that Kaworu might have found out when the UN did, but he also might have found out by eating Keel.

On the one hand, eating people's souls was creepy. On the other, picturing the brainless, drooling husk that was all that was left of the cause of the greatest tragedy in history was probably putting a lot of people in their happy places right now, and hopefully associating that with Kaworu would help. He deserved the credit.

"You said at the embassy that you let my mother and Ryoji Kaji kidnap me."

"Yes," he confirmed. "The old council knew that Gendo Ikari had plans of his own, and you were too powerful a weapon to leave in his hands. He created you to bring about Yui Ikari's version of Third Impact. To kill you would have left Lilith's soul to take another clone as a vessel or worse, it would have found its way to its original body. Without either your soul or mine, the other angels could not have set off Third Impact with what was kept in Terminal Dogma. Your creation defused Lilith, or that is how Gendo Ikari defended his actions. I wished to keep you with me, as my younger sister, but the possibility that you, not Misato Katsuragi, were the first child of the prophecies, coupled with the risk that you would be loyal to Gendo… I thought that they would have you killed if you were not spirited away. What Keel truly intended was to keep your body intact, but ensure that you could not develop a personality that might defy him."

Kaworu was silent for a moment, looking at Rei's eyes… Or past them? Into the brain that allowed both of them to think like Lilim? Had Keel planned to lobotomize her? "Since your soul is that of Lilith, mother of the Lilim, I thought that her children would not harm you. I was very worried when I found out that they considered it, but you were kept in NERV's facilities, where I could not go." Not without shattering the tenuous peace they had, convincing both the UN _and SEELE _that he meant to bring about Third Impact on his terms, ahead of schedule.

"When I began to visit Shinji I hoped that I might catch at least a glimpse of you at that house, and see that you were well. I was very happy to play together with you at the cultural festival concert," he smiled, and yet, "I couldn't take the risk of spending too much time with you. Even the Lilim sense souls, even though most of the time they aren't aware of it. If I ever considered you my younger sister, then I should have reached out to you despite the risk, and yet, by the time I was able to speak to you… Forgive me." He bowed to her again, over the arms folded in this sleeves. "By wearing the guise of a Lilim, and avoiding you… I was cruel to you. I am truly sorry."

Rei must have realized why Tabris did that: for Shinji's sake. If even Rei figured it out, then surely the analysts doing the commentary had. Although that could be what Tabris _wanted _them to think, that it was romantic when he was probably just trying to not get caught.

The cultural festival concert, though: would people want to know about that? Lots of people had taped it, including Aida. Shinji could probably see to it that it was put up online, although Asuka would be furious that even with her, Kaworu and Shinji there it still sounded so _amateur_.

To see Kaworu as a human, as a musician? Most of the clear footage of 'Kaworu Nagisa' was from Tokyo-3 and the Fuyutsuki Manor's security cameras, and of course that was classified. Shinji wondered for a moment why none of it had been officially released before he realized that of course he was the reason why.

He had the best family, he realized again, and tried to focus on his poker face and not blushing with happiness. At least it was better than flushing with obvious anger.

"Once we met when you weren't in disguise, you were very kind," Rei said to Kaworu, wanting him to know that he was forgiven. "You said you wanted me to make friends among the Lilim, so I know you never wanted me to think that you were refusing to be my friend," like Shinji had and once again Shinji was left feeling like a total asshole.

No, even worse than that, like a, a… an _Ikari_.

Thinking that he should at least do his job, he looked out at the crowd again and wondered what they were thinking about Tabris wearing the platinum circlet that was his crown of office. He hadn't worn it when he was fighting Misato, which was most of the footage the UN had of him, not counting pirated signals from stations in Refuge territory.

According to Hyuga, who had people to check this sort of thing, the crown was new. Tabris first wore it during one of the council sessions the first few days after he devoured Keel and NERV spared Armisael. Obviously it was supposed to be a sign that he was taking secular power now, as a head of state instead of just the person who did most of the job of the head of state because Keel couldn't be bothered with the actual responsibility of it, as opposed to the power.

If he was wearing his, when it would anger people that an _abomination _ruled humans, then he must have brought Shinji's. Shinji wasn't really surprised: this was supposed to be the formal announcement to the UN population of Tabris' interpretation of the prophecy of the King of the Lilim and that he intended to have Shinji crowned King of Refuge once he was old enough. The UN government already knew because Shinji gave his dad permission to tell them and the UN population knew thanks to watching Tabris' official announcement to the people of Refuge, but for Shinji to walk up to Tabris today and accept that crown? That would show that he actually intended to go along with this, instead of it just being something in the abomination's head or meant to discredit a pilot, one of humanity's heroes or something.

People already wanted to know why, if Tabris claimed he was going to obey Shinji, Shinji couldn't just order him to dissolve Refuge. Or die, for that matter. At least Tabris promising his people that he wouldn't obey any order that imperiled them helped. Thankfully for Shinji's PR in Refuge, he'd implied that this would only happen if Shinji was forced to at least try to give such orders, which was true.

Only an idiot would give an order they knew wasn't going to be obeyed, and Shinji wouldn't do that to Tabris regardless.

That way lay sappy thoughts of thinking about how wonderful his Kaworu was and how could anyone possibly be mean to him.

While he was zoned out thinking of that, Rei took Kaworu's hand and Shinji felt a flash of jealousy he knew was irrational. It wasn't like Rei was going to try to kiss it, he told himself. It wasn't like it was Shinji's property either and Kaworu could let other people hold it if he wanted to let them. If they hugged, Shinji would be happy for Rei and Kaworu, he told himself. He needed to make up for being such a jerk to Rei, and how could hugs from her big brother not make her happy when that long-lost brother was Kaworu.

Used to being watched, Kaworu was clearly not bothered at all by the crowd. Even though he had to sense that many of them were hostile even without encroaching, just from the radiation of their souls. Rei, though, kept glancing at them and seemed to have a bit of stage fright under her poker face, not because she was putting on a performance but just because she was being watched by so many people. It was different from being filmed with Armisael, wasn't it: there was just a camera then, not people.

Shinji sympathized: he hated being stared at, feeling alone and exposed.

Thinking about other things wasn't working: seeing Kaworu there, Shinji couldn't help wanting to go to his side. Except this was Rei's precious, rare time with her brother while Shinji got to see him almost every other day.

"I brought you a gift," Kaworu told her, reaching into one of his sleeves. "For you, sister. A robe adorned with the blue sea and its silver foam. I hope that between the two of us and Armisael, we can restore that sea to the Lilim." The fabric he pulled out seemed like only a handful, but when he shook it out Shinji saw that it was indeed enough for a robe, with bell-like sleeves.

"Thank you," Rei said, looking at it but not moving to take it from Tabris' hands, much less put it on herself. "It's beautiful." The waves weren't a dark blue, even though the motif was taken from old-style Japanese paints of the sea. Instead they were a pale blue, just a bit deeper than the blue of her hair. Enough that it would bring out the color of her hair.

"When I first saw you, you had only been taken from the tank a handful of weeks ago, but your body looked only a little younger and a little smaller than mine," Kaworu said, smiling softly at the memory. "I wanted to give you beautiful things like this, and take you by the hand. Show you this world. You blinked at me, not knowing yet how to express yourself, but there was still a hint of curiosity in your eyes, so like mine." Unlike anyone else's. "They expected that we would be enemies, and Keel even hoped that I would harm you or demand your destruction so that he would have justification for harming the vessel of humanity's progenitor. The Black Seed who, by creating them without immortality, cursed them to be imperfect, alone, less than divine. I saw his hatred for you, and it just made me wish that I could protect you." He sighed, lowering the hands that held the robe since she still hadn't taken it.

"Still, you have a home, with people who care for you. Surely they will grant you happiness, even if I wasn't able to be a brother to you."

Seeing his dejected expression, Rei took the robe and even flung it over her shoulders. She didn't put her arms in the sleeves, but although the piece of art should have looked strange on top of her plugsuit it fit somehow. Perhaps because both it and the plugsuit were crafted to fit Rei?

"Thank you, Tabris," she said, instead of calling him either 'brother,' or Kaworu. The second was fine with Shinji: that was _his _name for Kaworu.

He really needed to be less jealous! If Rei and Kaworu looked alike, so what? Shouldn't he think of it as sort of a family resemblance instead of a sign they belonged together in another way? Especially when he _knew _that _Shinji _was the one Kaworu belonged with!

"You are welcome, Rei." She truly was welcome to this, and far more if he could grant it to her. Clasping hands was all that they could really do: a hug would be too familiar, and make it too easy for Tabris to pass a message or hide encroachment tentacles or something. The robe would be examined, obviously.

Now they parted, Rei taking a step back to fold up the robe for safekeeping, and it was a pity that they couldn't have more time together, really. Rei associating too much with Tabris could put her in danger, though, and Ritsuko would never stand for that.


	30. Eternal Nemesis

Behind them, staffers wheeled the podium away and a chair brought in. According to Hyuga, Tabris requested a chair instead of a podium when they were setting this up so that people could see him clearly instead of most of him being hidden by the bulk of the podium. Tabris' reasoning was probably that he hoped that the Lilim would see he wasn't hiding anything when he spoke to them, but the consensus of most of Intelligence and the event planners was that since his ability to reach out to electronics meant he didn't need a microphone, he was used to addressing his people either while standing or from what was clearly meant to be a throne.

The folding chair they brought in was just like the ones all the spectators were sitting in, because the event planners flatly refused to do anything with the symbolism of enthroning Tabris. Since he was watching for it Shinji saw the person who ushered Tabris up to the chair as the event organizer told the crowd that there would be a speech and then questions hand Tabris a tiny sound pickup to clip to his collar. There was no way they'd let Tabris infiltrate the audio and broadcast equipment here.

Even though Great Britain was devastated by the Rapture's tsunami and didn't receive anywhere near as much help rebuilding as Japan because it wasn't the location of Lilith, and most people nowadays would happily rank the US as fourth, maybe fifth, on a list of global powers (well behind the UN, the EU and Japan, which the world had hurried to rebuild in order to prepare for the abomination attacks and now had a level of infrastructure and technology in civilian hands as well as industrial production that _exceeded_ pre-Rapture levels, unlike every single other country on earth), English was still the primary international language due to a combination of inertia and the fact everyone bought food from the US.

Shinji knew in advance that the speech and question-and-answer portion would be conducted in English instead of Japanese. Tabris and Rei had spoken in Japanese, but that was because although Rei was physically Shinji's age she was actually only around seven years old, so she didn't know much English aside from relevant things like technical and military terms. She certainly wouldn't have been comfortable carrying on a friendly conversation in it.

Tabris and the Japanese representative had also spoken in that language, which was a smart move. English was the international language, and this wasn't anything international, just a Japanese representative allowing Tabris on Japanese soil. So of course they'd used the local language, just like of course the UN as a whole didn't have anything to do with this and wasn't in bed with SEELE or Tabris.

Refuge used English – there was an old rumor that they'd considered making Latin the official language, but saner heads had prevailed.

Shinji had read transcripts of Tabris' speeches and even watched video of some of those speeches well before he even met Kaworu, so he knew that Tabris spoke English. Heck, he knew that Kaworu spoke English, French, German and a ridiculous amount of other languages, supposedly because his family had international investments. Kaworu read songs and poetry in their original languages all the time.

He thought he was used to the idea that Kaworu was Tabris, but when Shinji and Kaworu talked it was always in Japanese. So it was weird to hear him start speaking English in person like this. Not hearing a song or hearing him over a TV broadcast, but speaking like it was normal in the same room as Shinji. The same outdoor amphitheatre, so this wasn't all that intimate a setting, true.

The not-really-novelty of it made him pay more attention to the sound of Kaworu's voice than he normally did. SEELE probably wanted him to learn how to sing because he supposedly was an angel, but knowing how to project and control his voice must help with public speaking.

Shinji thought Kaworu sounded absolutely compelling and he could listen to the sound of Kaworu's voice for hours, watching the movements of his lips and soaking up his presence even if Kaworu was reading a telephone directory. It wouldn't matter what he was saying.

So he couldn't judge how other people were reacting to Kaworu's speech based on how he was, or he hoped not anyway. If everyone found Kaworu as perfect and wonderful as Shinji did…

The chill that ran down Shinji's spine, the sense that there was a threat to Kaworu was probably just being territorial or something, but he still glanced over to Hyuga, who wouldn't have a hand at his earpiece so obviously unless something was up. He could just be listening to signals analysis' take on the broadcast safety and whether or not Ritsuko was picking up anything from Tabris that might affect brainwaves the way Arael had, but Shinji still had to work not to tense or shift into a ready position too obviously. Not to put his hand on his sidearm, because the most likely target was Tabris and he did have an AT field… right?

Shinji was here, so it was possible that it might be down even though normally it wasn't possible, but Kaworu would know that was a risk, right? Would be sure to check that it was up and ready to respond?

All of the reporters, officials and other guests present were searched when they got here, but more for bombs than anything else. Tabris wasn't supposed to be vulnerable, but no one else here had that kind of AT field and humans dying when Tabris was present might set back the peace process, even if hopefully no one would really believe that he was responsible instead of domestic terrorists. Of course they'd also checked for guns, knives and anything that might be thrown, because everyone here had to know that if they tried to attack the abomination with their bare hands they'd be shot before they made it to the stage, so it was really just to discourage attacks and try to keep this peaceful.

Try was the operative word: there were too many people who wanted the peace to fail for this meeting not to be a target. That was why there was a quarter-kilometer perimeter around this location, cleared of all unauthorized personnel by the JSDF, and why Shinji, the NERV personnel and intelligence division were told to come armed.

So was this feeling like something was about to happen, that there was an enemy here, born of Shinji's knowledge that yeah, logically that was very probable combined with paranoia, or was this a valid hunch, his instincts trying to warn him about something his conscious mind hadn't noticed yet?

He almost hoped this was an AT field sensing thing, because if Shinji was sensing something like that then Kaworu had to have sensed it and checked to make sure that his damn AT field was up.

Glancing around the room again and trying not to make it too obvious that he was really looking at Hyuga, Shinji knew that he wasn't the only one. The head of the intelligence division should have been scanning the crowd, if this was normal professionalism, normal wariness. He was just a little too still now, as though he was trying to focus. Not on gathering more data, but trying to figure out what part of the data he'd already gathered, what he'd already seen and heard, was bothering him.

Beside Shinji, his dad shifted his weight onto his bad leg, which normally he knew better than to do. Unless he was worried and trying to hide it: it wouldn't do for the Commander of NERV to fidget or appear anxious in front of an audience like this, when they'd assume it had something to do with Tabris.

Standing on the other side of the room, Misato didn't look any different from normal, the amount of watchfulness to be expected of a disciplined soldier in the presence of an enemy. The thing was that she wouldn't: Misato was a professional when she wanted to be. Misato was _the_ professional when she wanted to be. If some would-be assassin was considering making a move then if security started acting like they thought something was up they'd be more careful, or hope that someone else was setting off the security and try to make their move in the confusion as the first poor bastard was tackled or take advantage of the relief afterwards, the moment when people let their guard down.

Shinji saw a couple of Hyuga's direct subordinates looking at their boss, realizing that he was getting a bit twitchy and they'd best get ready themselves… And that was when the aura of threat went away.

Half a second later Hyuga relaxed, and Dad moved his weight back onto his good leg, and Shinji wondered what it meant that the three of them (and Misato?) were the ones who sensed whatever this was, if they were starting to relax at the same time. Was it because Dad and Hyuga were both bridge staff during NERV's operations? Had they both felt the alien, predatory intent of the angels enough to sharpen this sense?

Misato, too, had stopped looking at Tabris, instead letting her gaze wander over the crowd like a normal person who was a bit bored with the proceedings and wanted to see people's reactions instead of just looking at Kaworu giving a speech all day.

…Except Misato was shifting her weight too, and Shinji knew that stance. It was relaxed, but there: not a ready position, but Misato was readying herself to flow into one, ready to bring her gun up. Classic Piloting Academy style, because Misato was the one who field tested that style, the first to experience actual combat in a massive humanoid fighting machine.

The eye of the storm, Shinji realized. Whoever it was saw that security was on edge, so give them enough time to think it was a false alarm, and then…

That was when he hit the deck at the same moment Professor Fuyutsuki, survivor of more assassination attempts than the son of the Ikaris since he spent more time out in public, jumped off the side of the platform to take cover behind it.

Standing between the two of them, the intelligence division guard would have taken those two shots in the chest and knees if Tabris' AT field hadn't appeared around the podium like flickering light, not caging all of them in but appearing just for a moment to block first one shot, then the other half an instant later.

The assassin didn't get off a third shot.

"Inspector Hyuga?" the Commander called with only a trace of pain in his voice.

"My apologies." Because that was one of his men, before the Inspector shot him.

"That isn't necessary, unfortunately," Fuyutsuki said as he gestured for his guard and Shinji to help him back up so everyone could see that he was alright. "No one made it into NERV's intelligence division without being very skilled and very dedicated to finding some way to fight the abominations for humanity or… some other cause." SEELE or Gendo Ikari's. "I'm aware of all the effort you've put into counter-intelligence operations, but I'm also aware you had to pick up the reins of a disorganized organization." He winced as he braced a knee on the platform to help push himself up the rest of the way. "I'm certain you checked everyone assigned here thoroughly for connections to any outside organization, but there's little anyone can do about people who made their own decisions. We can't rule out terrorist connections, but it's very likely that your officer saw his shot and he took it. The question is what he was aiming for."

"He was SEELE's obviously," one of the JSDF security people objected. "Aiming for the Commander and his son." His son, supposedly the future king of SEELE territory. Could those who believed in Tabris really be happy that he was supposedly willing to hand power over to a mere mortal, and one who fought for the UN at that?

"Excuse me," Tabris said politely, which instantly made everyone on the platform quiet. The people in the audience were still getting back in their seats, straightening up and apologizing for bumping into people in the process of about ninety percent of them hitting the deck. The world was a dangerous enough place that what to do in the event someone started shooting was just as much common knowledge as what to do in case of a fire. Since 'shoot the gunman before he kills anyone else' was the optimal solution, Shinji wondered how many of them had reached for sidearms they normally carried and experienced that brief moment of existential panic at finding oneself unarmed. The experience of knowing that you were helpless was something Shinji wouldn't wish on anyone.

He remembered Misato, the year before her sync ratio had finally dropped to zero, and couldn't help glancing at her with a bit of guilt in his eyes. Shinji was practically celebrating no longer having an Eva to pilot, while Misato had to suffer losing her connection to her Eva. Having to send children she loved to fight in her place.

"Even without encroachment, I can sense auras. I don't know whether or not it was this man, but someone was preparing to attack me shortly before this happened. I believe he, along with other members of the security staff, saw that the Fuyutsukis and Inspector Hyuga had realized something was amiss and decided to wait. If other Lilim had noticed something, then it was too likely that I had as well, and he would waste his one chance. As the security forces started to relax their guard, he likely realized that moment was his best chance and acted as soon as the thought occurred to him, in hopes I wouldn't react quickly enough."

"So you knew he was going to attack?" Commander Fuyutsuki asked darkly.

"I knew that there was a high probability that someone was likely to attack me," Tabris said calmly, "but I knew that there was a high probability that someone was likely to attack me when I came here. What you call the AT field is the light of the soul: it radiates outward." He cupped his hands to make a sphere and then pulled them apart, depicting how that force flowed outward. "Seeing a shadow on a wall, and trying to figure out which of a hundred candles is casting that shadow. Even I can't find the source of a single… frequency in a room full of similar frequencies that easily. Lilim AT fields are very similar to each other, and he was far from the only person in this room who wants me dead, or was wishing very hard that they could murder me and imagining they had the tools to do it. It wasn't a case of finding a needle in a haystack, but a red fish in a pond of other red fish. You weren't moving around as much as upset fish generally do, but your auras were. If I said I sensed killing intent, then it would have disrupted this gathering, and if he was one of your own then another search would have found nothing."

"Then why did he target the Fuyutsukis?"

"That's obvious," Misato said, raising her eyebrow. The man stopped looking at Tabris challengingly and dropped his gaze because this was Misato Katsuragi. "If he was after Tabris, then he realized that after even a false alarm, Tabris wouldn't forget and drop his AT field in Shinji's presence again, if he did forget in the first place – someone from NERV would know that was his only chance of killing him. If his goal was revenge for Second Impact, then his secondary target would be Tabris' only confirmed vulnerability." Shinji. He would have aimed for Shinji to hurt Kaworu. "The other most likely scenario is that we have two assassins on our hands: the one originally aiming for Tabris and this one. The first assassin saw that the intelligence division was getting suspicious and decided to hold his fire, while this one, knowing that the rest of the intelligence division was dropping their guard, took his opportunity to target Shinji for whatever reason." Revenge for Adam, to keep Tabris dedicated to instrumentality, whatever.

"You realized that someone would take advantage of that, didn't you?" Shinji asked Misato for the benefit of people who couldn't figure this stuff out on their own? "I was relaxing a little too, since I figured the guy must have realized that security was on top of it, but then I saw you getting ready."

Misato nodded: good job, although she approved more of him providing exposition for the audience then him failing to realize he shouldn't let his guard down that fast, feeling or no feeling. "Since our hypothetical assassin number one seems to just be after Tabris, that's not NERV or JSDF security's problem. Tell me I'm not the only person who noticed that you picked this location," the bowl-like amphitheatre, "so everyone would have a clear shot without humans possibly getting in the way?"

Hyuga and the JSDF officer failed to look innocent.

"I would offer anyone who wanted to kill me the chance to make their attempt now, to get it over with without any innocent bystanders getting hurt," Tabris said, "but knowing the Lilim, and with Misato Katsuragi here, I'm sure that would take all day." That they wouldn't give up that easily, and people would try even knowing they almost certainly couldn't manage it.

Misato smiled a little too wide, with way too many teeth, but her eyes certainly weren't smiling. No: the crease between her eyes, the sheer frustration balanced right on the point of homicidal rage in the arc of that eyebrow… "Good to know you haven't grown out of being a fucking annoying little brat."

Shinji saw his father glancing at the corner where they'd stashed the podium, judging the distance to that bit of cover. He was too old to be jumping off ledges to take cover twice in one day.

"That superior attitude of yours, not even having the decency to realize how fucking insulting every damn word that comes out of your mouth is… And then you wonder why we hate you. You, not Adam." She turned around. "Alright, everyone out of the way," she ordered, shooing them towards the sides, away from the audience's possible lines of fire at Tabris. "If we let this kind of thing cancel official projects, we'd never get anything done. If anyone else wants to try to shoot him," Tabris, not Shinji, "then we won't let it delay things any further, understood? Good luck," she added, looking up at the sky, and Shinji knew she wasn't just wishing that for the potential assassins. But also the rest of them, that they wouldn't have to be here all day. In the heat, when that jump couldn't have been good for his dad's leg.

When Misato got back to her place and turned around Kaworu still had his head bowed towards her, and Shinji inwardly cringed, because even though Kaworu was trying to show his contrition that was not going to help.

"Humans throwing their lives away to try to kill you is not a fucking joke," she told him, anger returning as she looked at that bowed head even though she'd tried to calm down. "It's not something that will stop if we just 'be reasonable' or 'considerate' or the rest of that bullshit in your head. Forget that you're an abomination, forget whether or not you're the one that killed billions of us. You stood between us and the old men. You, not Adam or anything else. Those bastards killed billions of us, and that is not a damn statistic! That is billions of people's loved ones! People's parents and children, friends husband wives everything! And you floated there and didn't take that seriously? Acting like you and they hadn't done anything wrong and if we'd just calmed down… Calm down? How the hell do you calm down when someone kills the one you love and there's no justice, they're just laughing at the entire world and trying to kill everyone else! To get what they want! To get what they killed all those people for! You helped them get away with it!

"Shielded the world? The blood isn't on your hands? Bullshit! Regardless of what happened the day of the Rapture, you're an accessory after the fact! You helped them get away with it! And you had the gall to think it was sad and unfair that I wouldn't be your friend? You were young and fucking stupid, so maybe you deserve some clemency for being a juvenile, but you want us to treat you like a ruler now, a responsible adult? Then that means you're responsible. If you've seen inside those bastards' heads, then you know that everything they fed you as a child was bullshit. Why am I even surprised that you still don't realize what's wrong about joking about something that happened because billions of people died?" Misato implored the heavens. "It's not like those evil bastards valued human life either!" She pointed to where NERV Intelligence, efficient as ever, already had the dead man bagged and ready to be removed. "That man died just now, that man tried to kill my little brother just now, because he hated you just that much. And you fucking earned that hate."

Silence, and, "There is nothing I can say," Tabris acknowledged, spreading his hands.

"Don't do that either, don't just flick it away like the blood can come off your hands that easily… You wanted us to hear you out, didn't you? You wanted me to hear you out, like if I would just listen to you, then nothing else would matter? What happened to my father wouldn't matter?" Her eyes weren't wild, and that was maybe the second-to-worst part. This wasn't just someone saying things in a rage, picking words to hurt instead of to convey what they really felt.

"Well, now we're giving you a chance to speak. We're listening. This is what you wanted: don't you dare turn around now and say that nothing you say can get through to us, like we Lilim are that unreasonable. No, there is nothing you can say, and you know why? Because nothing can justify what you did. Or how you acted. Don't you dare sit there all depressed like a poor baby because I said things you should damn well know are true. Don't expect any sympathy when you never bothered to understand our feelings or respect them. Say your piece and get out, don't you dare sit there looking like a sad little boy as though that changes one damn thing. Is that what you're doing? Are you going to play on my little brother's feelings until he can't stand to see you like this anymore? Because he loves you, 'Kaworu Nagisa,'" she said mockingly, "even though Tabris doesn't deserve it. Are you trying to make people think he's on your side, so he doesn't have any choice but to go to you? Are you trying to separate him from his family?"

She smirked. "You want to run away now, don't you? Because there's nothing you can do or say when everything I said is true and you damn well know it."

Shinji almost wished another assassin would fire now, but why would they? When Misato was doing so much more to hurt Tabris than they ever could. He almost jumped when he felt a hand on his shoulder.

"It's alright," Professor Fuyutsuki said very softly, and Shinji realized that he was being careful to face away from the cameras. "She's going easy on him." When Shinji stared at him, he sighed a little sadly and said, "There are things we don't discuss with you. With any of the children." It wasn't just that Shinji was compromised.

"She is not pulling her punches." Shinji knew his sister and how she fought: she was using her words like guided missiles, like surgeon's knives.

"No," like Misato would do that, "But she's not using every weapon at her disposal, either. Not on camera." He patted Shinji's back and turned around, ending the conversation.

So whatever these things Misato wasn't saying were, they weren't something NERV wanted the world to see? Wanted the knowledge or possibility of them to get out?

The commander coughed loudly enough to get Misato's attention, and Shinji had another reason to be incredibly grateful to his dad. Just disapproval wouldn't have made her leave Tabris alone, but tossing his flask to her across the stage did it. Bribe accepted.

"Now, would you mind helping an old man down off the stage?" he asked Shinji and his bodyguard. "I think I twisted my ankle in all the excitement."

Kaworu was so upset… But his dad, and Kaworu would understand. Would probably feel a bit better in at least one way if Shinji wasn't here to see this and get pulled into it, become a target of hate and cruel words because of it.

He still flashed an apologetic look at Kaworu, praying for him to please be okay until Shinji got back. Even if Kaworu didn't meet Shinji's eyes, he knew that Kaworu should feel it, right?

At least that seemed to give Kaworu a little strength. "Part of the reason I corresponded with you over that device was so that if you had anything like this to say you would say it, Misato Katsuragi. Much of what you say is true, much to my sorrow, but implying that I would use Shinji like that? And throwing their lives away to kill me… You say that I should have stood aside and let you have the old men, but not once did you or any other Lilim ask me to stand aside, Misato Katsuragi. You say this now, but you never said it then. You never asked anything of me but my death, and I was a child!

"You sought to kill me and all the people I knew, all the people who showed me any kindness. And you are right: the old men were laughing at you. Keel knew that you would do this, that you would do the job of convincing me that all of you were cruel, irrational murderers. He knew that none of you, none at all, would approach me as a fellow person, much less as a child. That you would insist I was a monster, treat me like one, and so what was I to think but that you were being cruel and unfair?

"That was his great fear, Misato Katsuragi. That if I was allowed contact with the Lilim, I would be seduced away from SEELE's ideals. He was very careful to keep Gendo Ikari far away from me because that man, at least, had the wit to plan to treat Rei like enough of a person that she would be loyal to him. We both know that at first I was Refuge's only defense, that if I was taken out of the picture or convinced to abandon the old men you would have had the vengeance you wanted, Misato. I was a curious child. A puppy, as you've called me repeatedly. Yes, I wanted friends.

"And Keel knew that you would be too foolish and blind to give me what I wanted. That you would hate the 'abomination' too much to realize that you could have lured me away and left the old men unprotected with simple kindness! He knew that you would be too blinded by hatred of the so-called 'abominations' to see what was in front of your eyes: that I was a simple child, so easy to manipulate. He knew that every time I reached out to the Lilim, you would once again prove him right. Prove that the Lilim were incapable of opening their hearts to others.

"You could have had the old men, Misato Katsuragi. You could have had them years ago. But you let your hatred and anger blind you. I was practically throwing myself into your hands, and you kept throwing away that opportunity. If I remained in their hands, it was because you made it clear to me, over and over, that I had nowhere else to go! If I believe in their teachings, is that not at least in part because those who could have taught me otherwise taught me nothing but hatred? That was what they counted on, that the hatred of the UN forces would convince me that Lilim were incapable of putting aside their hatred! That Lilim were incapable of suppressing their cruel natures! That peace and happiness would be impossible for beings like you unless I granted you the complementation they desired! I tried, Misato! I tried for years to believe in you Lilim, and you mock my efforts? Every time I managed to hope that the Lilim were better than SEELE claimed, who was it that convinced me otherwise? To Shinji you are his kind elder sister, Misato Katsuragi, but your actions towards me… I should not be so cruel as to say this, Misato Katsuragi, but all of your victories over me? Every time you served as a distraction, every time my people were killed because of you?

"The men you hate so much celebrated your victories just as much as you did, oh heroic First Child. Because you were field testing the Evas they required and could not yet build and test themselves. Because you and the UN forces who came and killed because of your help convinced the people of Refuge, both those who fled there and those trapped by the expansion of our borders, that they could never leave without being murdered. That they had no choice but to stay and serve the old men. But most of all because you ensured that the angel of free will, the one the prophecies warned them would rebel, was given proof after proof that Lilim were murderers! That peace was impossible! That to fail to grant you instrumentality would be to condemn you to, to you!"

He glared at her. Calm, kind Kaworu glared: that startled Shinji almost more than the words when he watched the tape later. "You hated me for my kindness, for my so-called purity, because you feared that I was proving that SEELE was right? You think that I was the one who proved them right? You feared that I was better than you, and so you responded with hate and violence to any hint that I was not a lesser being than you? You took my capacity for friendship as a slap in the face because it did not confirm your prejudices, because I was not the faceless enemy you craved in order to justify the hate and cruelty in your heart? Rejoice, Misato Katsuragi! Many of the scars on my heart are scars that you put there! The one that proved to me that SEELE was right about the Lilim was you! Even as you fought the old men, you did their work far better than even Kaji knew!"

He closed his eyes. "Hatred begets hatred: rejection begets rejection. SEELE believed that the Lilim can never break free from the legacy of hatred, that there was no hope that you would be able to put it aside even long enough to save yourselves. For Shinji's sake, I am once again trying to prove them wrong, Misato. I am once again reaching out to you, offering you the chance to get what you want, if you can only put your hatred and desire for vengeance aside long enough to accept it. Will you once again show me that I was wrong to give you a chance? Will you once again prove SEELE right, Misato Katsuragi? You, and all the people of the UN… No, all the Lilim, because this world's peace and survival depend on the people of Refuge as well, and their capacity to forgive their persecutors. Yes, billions of Lilim died because of the old men. But the original members of SEELE were Lilim just like you, not 'abominations.' How many more innocent Lilim have been murdered by their neighbors, by their kin? By your own government?

"Yes, I admit that there is blood on my hands, for not stopping them sooner, but how dare you throw stones at me, Misato Katsuragi, when you gloated to me of burned towns, of people dead because I could not save them from you?! I put aside my desire for vengeance, my desire to protect the people who were kind to me by ending your threat to them, again and again!" Every time he didn't kill her for what she'd done. "Would you have me believe that Lilim are incapable of doing the same? That was what SEELE wished me to believe! Shinji hates that part of me still believes this, and whose fault is that? SEELE's alone, when you claim that there is nothing wrong at all about Lilim responding to murder with more murder? That I shouldn't expect anything more of you? That you aren't capable of bettering yourselves? Would you have me hold the Lilim in contempt?"

He frowned now, and red eyes flashed as he stood, soul flaring enough to turn his hair from gray to white but not quite enough to trigger the alarms. "You would, wouldn't you? That's what you want, what you've wanted all along! For me to hate you, for me to be your enemy, so you can be justified in hating me back! So you can erase the evidence of your father's crimes because your father, Misato Katsuragi…"

That was when she splashed him with the flask's vodka, hurling it in his face, and it sizzled as it struck his AT field, boiling and burning away as the alarm sounded.

Not enough to make them abort the broadcast. Not enough to silence Tabris, after the threat was gone and the alarm shut off. "Your father is one of the men responsible for the rape of my mother. Your father is one of the men who brought about the Rapture! He was just as guilty, no, more guilty than the Ikaris! He ordered, he oversaw the so-called experiment that triggered the Rapture, knowing the result! Not because he was a believer, but for your sake, so you would be allowed to survive. Second impact was triggered, my mother was forced to bear me, for your sake! And you dare speak to me of blood-guilt? You dare claim that I am a monster, and you Lilim are not?"

"You, how dare you!" she demanded, flask flung to the side, skidding across the platform into the audience and gun already in her hands.

"How dare I? How dare I what? How dare I speak the truth? How dare I be more than just a target for your hate? How dare I not lie down and die so that you can have your victory, so that you can clear your father's name? How dare I love your brother, how dare I be capable of love? How dare I try to overcome the hatred and desire for vengeance in my heart when you have surrendered to your own darkness, no, embraced it? That threatens you, Misato Katsuragi," he said, half as though he was only now realizing it and half as though he was asking someone if this was true. Querying the memories of the old men, for their ability to read and understand Lilim? "Because if I have done what you cannot, put aside the wrath you cling to for comfort as though you are the child here, then doesn't that mean that either I am better than you, or it is long since time for you to act like an adult and…"

He took a deep breath. "No, Misato Katsuragi. It is not easy for me to overcome the anger I feel when I look at you, and think of all the people who have died because of you. Of the darkness and hatred that pour from your twisted heart. Of the poison that dripped from your lips into my ears, trying to kill a child with your words if you couldn't reach me with your Eva's fists. I look at you, and I know that the old men are right and you Lilim are evil… But also that there is more to you than that. There is the Misato Katsuragi who accepted surrenders knowing that your superiors wouldn't honor them but there is also the Misato Katsuragi who taught Shinji that he could be loved. That gave him a home. You and SEELE are the ones who taught me of the nature of the Lilim, as a child. Shinji's kindness… He may be the proof of what you can achieve, but perhaps it is you that is the purest avatar of the angel Lilim, in all her demonic glory."

* * *

'_Coming in here, being all perfect, acting like you want to help Shinji and then doing something that makes Shinji even worse off…' That does seem like anime!Kaworu is a hypocrite or an outright deceiver, and feeds the perception that he's evil. _

_When the thing is that even though Kaworu was intended to be so kind and good, he's still as messed up as everyone else in Eva. 'Never attribute to malice what can adequately be explained by stupidity.' Or being messed up, in Eva's case. _

_Deliberately messed up, in all 'verses. Manga!Kaworu gets lectures on how evil Lilim are. Anime!Kaworu felt to me like the phenomenon where a depressed person who has decided to commit suicide cheers up a lot (the relief knowing that it will be at an end soon) even before I saw the second draft proving that yes, he was envisioned as seeking his own death. He actually had tried to kill himself so he didn't destroy the Lilim on his own, instead of just making Shinji do it for the LOLZ. _

_If you know that just by being born, you killed billions (think of how Kaworu talks to Shinji about Third Impact in Q – yes, Kaworu holds himself responsible for Second Impact in that 'verse) and if you aren't stopped, you'll finish off the rest of the planet? And only one person can kill you? All versions of Kaworu are broken people. SEELE and/or Gendo are just trying to make sure that Kaworu gets broken in ways that are useful to them and render him unable to help Shinji._

_Think of Persona 4's Shadows: anime/Rebuild Kaworu's shadow would probably have some interesting things to say. I don't think his manga self would have a shadow yet – he doesn't have enough awareness or control to be repressing bits of his feelings because they're 'wrong.' He's ruled and finally destroyed by his feelings. Like Nanako, he's too much of a child to have a shadow._


	31. Beside the Throne

When Shinji got back things had calmed down and Tabris was answering questions. In hindsight, reviewing the footage afterwards, he realized that Hyuga hadn't let him go back until things calmed down. Until well after Misato managed to lower her gun and stalk off, knowing that she was too furious to do anything but sound like a berserk fool on international TV if she tried to argue with Tabris, or even respond to him.

Returning to the platform, he saw that until Ritsuko got there with Armisael he was the senior NERV staff member present. Hyuga was intelligence, which was part of NERV but also its own thing, even if it was under Misato's Operations command when abominations attacked. Since Shinji, as the second Eva pilot, was second-in-command of Operations that theoretically meant he ranked Ritsuko, not that he was stupid enough to actually try to pull rank on her.

That meant that when he had the urge to just walk to the middle of the stage to join Tabris as though there was nothing odd about this at all, there was no one to glance to in case they thought it was a stupid idea, which meant he had to make his own judgment call.

Kaworu looked calm enough, robes spilling over the sides of the chair and hiding the thin metal legs, making it look more like a throne than a cheap government issue folding chair, same as everyone else here had.

He looked serene and beautiful, but even though Shinji knew that Kaworu was good at controlling his emotions, meditating and regaining inner serenity (provided it hadn't been too long since they'd merged), that just made it worse. Kaworu shouldn't have to repress everything like that. There wasn't anyone here but Shinji who would support him, and someone should support him after what Misato said. Sure, the people in Refuge were probably outraged and Kaworu could read their e-mails no matter where he was, but that wasn't the same thing as a hand on his shoulder, a friendly smile.

So Shinji gave him both of those.

Kaworu turned to look up at him, red eyes melting as he gave Shinji a soft, grateful smile. "They wanted to ask questions about you, but I didn't feel right answering for you."

What Shinji wanted was Shinji's business, not Kaworu's to guess at and not the media's to know, so Shinji nodded his thanks. He didn't like people blabbing about him, even if Kaworu knew him better than most. The fact that none of what Kaworu said would have been made up almost made him talking about Shinji without Shinji's permission worse, or was it that he knew and trusted Kaworu, so it would have seemed like more of a betrayal. "Were there any that I should answer?"

"The first was one I would like to know the answer to," Kaworu told him. "When, or if, you plan to accept the title of King of the Lilim."

"I'm only fourteen," Shinji said bluntly, and turned to the crowd. "It's one thing for Tabris to run a country, but he and the new parts of Refuge's council have been running it for years because the old men didn't care about anything but instrumentality and their Evas: ask the intelligence divisions." Of the UN and the reporters' home countries. "So he has personal experience with what needs doing, and his abilities let him stay in contact with all the other people who know what needs doing, so he can just instantly send them an e-mail to pick their brains if he has a question, while I'd have to rely on what I know off the top of my head and I'm an Eva pilot. I don't know that place or those people. Still, even a fifteen-year-old is better than _those _old bastards ruling a country: at least Tabris cares whether these people live or die. A lot of them were trapped inside Refuge when the borders expanded, or went there to escape lynch mobs or to save a dying loved one. They're still human – Lilim-type human, same as us. I don't really like the idea of this 'King of the Lilim' thing. It's part of the prophecies, and the only good thing the _prophecies _have ever done for anyone is that they made those old bastards let Tabris keep visiting our teacher even after he moved to Tokyo-3. In order to make sure that Tabris fell in love with me so they could use me to kill him the way they wanted NERV to kill all the other abominations for them. Just using us and our determination to protect humanity to clear away the obstacles to them becoming gods the way they used Tabris, until it was time for him to die so they could get their hands on Adam's soul with all those inconvenient things like free will and caring about people.

"I've picked up a lot about politics: there really wasn't any way to avoid that with Commander Fuyutsuki as my father and Misato as my sister, but all my formal training is either as an Eva pilot or classical musician. Just throwing me into a throne sounds about as stupid as throwing anyone without any training into an Eva, especially since now that the other abominations have been defeated, international cooperation is the most important thing to humanity's survival. We need to overcome our differences at least long enough to get rid of the LCL, otherwise we might as well have let the abominations win. My father's opinion is that if Tabris wants to surrender power to _any _Lilim that isn't SEELE that's an opportunity that should be seized, but an orderly transition of power to a government that can discuss returning land to countries without the certainty that if they do so, their people are going to get slaughtered is the ideal, and having someone who doesn't know what they're doing even theoretically in charge during the all-important push to normalize relations and get rid of the LCL won't help. I don't want to be a figurehead: that would still let people try to go over Tabris' head to talk to me, trying to take advantage of my inexperience. From what I do know about leadership, as an Eva pilot, having a clear chain of command is important.

"I also don't think I'd be a very good candidate even if I did have political experience: Refuge considers Yui Ikari a heretic who wanted to kill off the rest of humanity's minds so she could absorb our knowledge and become a god herself, and Gendo Ikari helped her. The old men of SEELE might have found them useful, but the people of Refuge think they're almost as evil as the UN does and maybe half as evil as I do. I don't see how anyone could have the necessary confidence in a government with their biological son in charge. Except Tabris," Shinji added when he saw Kaworu's mouth open in his peripheral vision, "but he has unrealistic ideas about people, especially people he's in love with." He smiled, even though he knew most people would find that a startling idea instead of a bit of a joke, something friendly that Kaworu acknowledged with a smile of his own up at Shinji.

"I was already willing to accept Prince Consort provided it was as part of an interim government. Crown Prince with Tabris as my regent until I'm older or the position hopefully becomes just ceremonial isn't _that _different." Inwardly Shinji winced: 'ceremonial' meant 'ceremonies,' like religious ceremonies. It was a reminder that the people of Refuge worshipped Kaworu. Worshipped an abomination, and even with SEELE's old men gone this was still an abomination-worshipping theocracy. "Like England's constitutional monarchy," he corrected himself. "Tabris wouldn't mind that," he said, looking down at Tabris for Kaworu to back him up here.

"I am aware that I am young," Kaworu acknowledged. "It is my wish that someday the people of Refuge won't need a protector. If it weren't for the help and wisdom of the Council and other officials, I certainly couldn't run Refuge by myself. I sympathize with the people who worry that Lilim should rule themselves, that someone who isn't Lilim might not have the understanding necessary to take care of their people properly."

Shinji gave Kaworu a _look_ and seriously, if they weren't on camera, he would be very tempted to slap…yell at… talk sadly to Kaworu for saying something like that about himself, treating that like there was any validity to it at all. "Ignore him: he's a lot more Lilim than he thinks he is. Than SEELE wanted him to realize that he was."

"Shinji is kind," Kaworu said, almost certainly blushing a little under that makeup.

And Kaworu was ridiculously kind. "If I survived Eva piloting, I didn't have any plans beyond playing classical music and continuing to volunteer as a research subject, since my contamination ratio is what it is. Unfortunately, it turned out that my violinist came with a country, and while that was definitely a shock, I'm a lot less worried about the future than I used to be. It's one thing to have Refuge under the control of those bastards and the abomination that my sister fought: it's a pretty big improvement for there to be a coup and now Kaworu Nagisa is in charge instead." Shinji grinned. "He used to do all our booking, so I know he can organize even if he's overly idealistic and likes sappy songs."

Kaworu ducked his pale head and laughed a little, acknowledging the hit, before raising it again to look at Shinji. Seeing the light in his eyes, Shinji felt better. He'd finally managed to cheer Kaworu up, make him show some genuine happy emotion that wasn't just using serenity as a shield against pain. "Do you want me to serenade you, here and now?"

"Try it and _I'll _shoot at you,_" _Shinji warned him. "If I have to give a speech like this or answer anyone's questions, then you're not getting out of this. You're the one who likes people: I'm the shut-in who mostly talks in one-word sentences and looks around for the exits, remember?" He sighed. "It's a good thing I know you're not stupid enough to try to bribe me into marrying you with a crown, especially Refuge's. I'm not good with people and I don't want everyone who looks at me there to see _Gendo Ikari_. That man is _not _my father, and he was the shadow-ruler, trying to manipulate the old bastards and the country for his own purposes. People are probably going to assume that I'm a UN puppet sleeping my way to power, and that I'm planning to stab them in the back the way Gendo was planning to betray SEELE. That's not going to give me any credibility, and I'm worried that any legislation about reconciling with the UN I try to push will get opposed on general principles, with people assuming that there must be something in there that will favor the UN government at their expense."

The UN population's position was certainly that Shinji had _better _do that, because there was no other justification for him doing this in the first place. Hopefully this would make the smart ones realize that doing that too blatantly was a bad idea, and no one liked Gendo Ikari.

"I hope that my people trust me enough to know that I won't let them come to harm," Tabris said, "but that's the only reason I'm retaining veto power during the regency period. I know that Shinji's duty as an officer of the UN is to your government, and it must be tempting to order him to do certain things. I don't want to give the impression that I want Shinji to be a puppet either, but hopefully this will make my people feel less nervous and let them give Shinji a chance to earn their trust."

It was really hard for Shinji not to caress his cheek, or do anything else too sappy and publically affectionate in front of cameras like this. "The Secret Dead Sea Scrolls say that Kaworu would fall in love with me: there's nothing in there about me returning his feelings," he managed. "The original prophet's body was the source of the Lilim DNA used to make Tabris," that Adam was raped with, "but that wasn't in the prophecies either. If the prophet did know they'd do that, then at least I hope Kaworu's biological father wasn't like mine. That he didn't want Kaworu to just be a tool that the people following the blueprints in the scrolls would raise for the slaughter, without getting to experience any happiness. I want to believe that it's possible for we humans to change our fate, that the scrolls aren't _the _future but just a possible or likely future.

"It would be nice to think that if someone saw what was coming, then they wrote the scrolls to warn us, and try to give humanity the knowledge it would need to survive, at least in some form. If it weren't for the scrolls, Adam would have awoken on its own and wiped us all out without any warning. If the scrolls have already changed the future, then I'd like to think that Kaworu's father cared enough to at least try to change his son's future. That Kaworu falling in love with me wasn't just in there to make sure that humanity could kill the most powerful of the abominations, or to make sure that Kaworu would do his best to keep Adam's soul from awakening and killing us, but so that he could experience love before he died. If it weren't for my father, I mean my _real _father, the one who actually gave a damn about me, then the old men would have kept him hidden in that lab until it was time for him to go die in accordance with their scenario. That's… really sad." He couldn't help stroking Kaworu's shoulder with the fingers of the hand he'd placed on it.

"I don't accept that humanity doesn't have any options but instrumentality or extinction. I, my father – Professor Fuyutsuki and all of us at NERV are fighting so that humans can survive as humans. Tabris was born from Adam, but he's still half-Lilim. Too many people have already died. I don't want him to die too. Not just because I love him, but on general principles. No one should be surrendered to fate. I'm sure all of you know what my contamination level is, thanks to my mother deciding to breed herself a pilot. The way SEELE decided to breed themselves an 'angel.'" Shinji hoped he'd remembered to refer to Kaworu as an abomination instead of an angel so far. "I used to be afraid of Tabris. Afraid that my sister wouldn't come home, and then because he was the second-to-final boss and if Misato couldn't beat him, then what chance did I have of stopping him from reaching Lilith's body and killing us all? Then I met Kaworu, and he was nothing at all like _Tabris_, like my enemy. He didn't have to be my enemy. So… I hope that you can give him a chance, and that we can work together to keep changing fate, keep saving our world."

Shinji bowed, hoping he hadn't sounded too stupid. He could speak English since lessons were one of the things Dad used to keep him busy as a kid. He'd practiced it a little with the maestro's other students before they left, and with NERV's international personnel even though the official language NERV's _operations_ were conducted in, as opposed to Ritsuko's science department, was Japanese in order to avoid confusion with the JSDF and possible civilians on the ground. He thought it was okay, but none of them were going to tell him if it was terrible. Anything would sound good compared to Kaji's English: Kaji claimed he sucked on purpose in order to shock, annoy and possibly even make people underestimate him. Not that that was likely when he was one of Misato's famous companions.

Shinji _knew _he should have spoken in Japanese.

Kaworu reached up to touch the hand on his shoulder reassuringly, but of _course_ Kaworu was going to want to reassure him that he'd done well for his first actual speech without a script. He would have to ask Dad and Hyuga about it later, since when he looked up the crowd looked… Well, most of them looked suspicious, slightly hostile, or blank, but that was how they'd looked before, so at least he hadn't made things any worse. Hopefully.

"Um, those questions?" he asked Kaworu, before glancing apologetically over at the event coordinator.

That small smirk when he saw that Shinji was expecting her to be unprepared was promising: it meant that someone had anticipated that Shinji might do this. That hopefully meant that it wasn't too bad an idea, since otherwise Dad would have told the planning people to make sure Shinji didn't do this, as opposed to making up a backup plan in case he did. "Questions were submitted before the event: by request I pulled the ones related to you from the stack."

"Thanks," Shinji said, looking at the stack of index cards that were a compromise between the reporters' desire for answers that hopefully weren't rehearsed and the government plus NERV's unwillingness to take the risks that would come with people being allowed to stand up and possibly just say whatever they wanted. Writing the questions on paper right before the ceremony and having them looked over by people while Tabris was greeting Rei, then keeping them on paper instead of inputting them into a teleprompter that could be encroached on was a compromise solution hammered out by Dad, Hyuga, the Japanese Diet and the reporters' representative over a couple weeks. Ritsuko was involved too, much to her annoyance because her involvement basically consisted of being asked questions people should already know the answers to when she had research to do, research that could mean the difference between life and death for far too many of the Children of Armisael.

Okay, looking at paper and answering questions wasn't too scary, right? It was just like taking a test. A test that would have a really big impact on his future. With an audience of hundreds of millions of people, if not billions.

He _really _wanted to run away. He'd rather fight Zeruel again. Death was quick, embarrassment and the shame of making things harder for Kaworu could last the entire rest of his life, which might not be all that long if he screwed up too badly.

"I'll start with the first of the skipped questions," since the order the various reporters would get their questions answered was something the reporters had argued about a lot. They were probably pissed when Tabris refused to answer questions that involved Shinji, although that depended on where the line was drawn when it came to 'too personal.'

…Wait, no one had actually asked anything about, about bed and… and tentacles or rather no tentacles, had they?

After Misato's speech and then Shinji's, a lot of the reporters were probably wishing they could change their questions, huh.

"Was Inspector Kaji responsible for ensuring that you came within reach of Shinji Fuyutsuki? Did he influence Shinji towards you in any way?"

Tabris looked a little surprised. "Questions like that were fine: I didn't mean to forbid all questions that had anything to do with Shinji, just ones that involved him or his feelings, ones he should answer for himself. No, to my knowledge Kaji was completely out of the loop. His position was deemed too valuable for him to risk it by communicating with SEELE: he was assigned to assist Misato Katsuragi and her Eva in their operations, help develop tactics and make sure that the next generation of pilots were well-trained so that they could successfully fight the other angels. Since he was tasked with ensuring the survival of the Lilim, more or less, the idea of involving him with anything less important than that was ludicrous.

"The maestro I went to study with was not involved in intelligence operations, either: he opted not to go into hiding with the other members of SEELE when Fuyutsuki revealed them, and they were willing to leave him in place since he never came under any suspicion. Once he was selected as my teacher, risking his exposure would have been risking mine. The member of our intelligence division who knew about Agent Kaji and the one who helped me when I wished to go among the Lilim had little contact with each other, and didn't share operational secrets that important. I met Agent Kaji while posing as Kaworu Nagisa, certainly: he insisted on interviewing all of the maestro's students, and I was watched more closely when I became Shinji's friend. I don't know if he suspected that I was like him, just meant to support Shinji instead of Misato, but I'm fairly certain his shock when he found out that I was Tabris was genuine. If I'd known he was our agent, I wouldn't have blocked the needle the first time he tried to give me an antihistamine shot. I assumed it was some drug meant to kill or incapacitate me. If he tried to set us up, I didn't notice it." Kaworu looked up at Shinji.

"In hindsight, it's strange that he _didn't_," Shinji said, frowning. "According to some of the people at the piloting academy," he wasn't going to name names, "some of them thought that we were dating at the cultural festival, and I definitely did treat Kaworu differently from everyone else my own age. He was my first friend, just like I was his. There's no way Kaji didn't notice, and normally he would have teased me relentlessly about something like that. He didn't even point it out to me, or Misato or anyone. So maybe he did think that Kaworu was supposed to support me?" Shinji couldn't help blushing a little. "Music is very important to me, and having someone to share it with… Not having that anymore, when we found out about Kaworu, affected my performance as a pilot. So either Kaji was worried that if I realized my feelings, I'd push Kaworu away and might not handle piloting as well because I was distracted, or he did think that Kaworu was another agent and didn't want to annoy me and screw things up for him by teasing me the way he would have if I'd gotten a crush on Asuka or something." He was the one who looked at Kaworu now, who shrugged helplessly.

"What Lilim think, what they're planning: that's not something I could see even if I encroached on them, and there was no need to do that to agent Kaji. Even if I had, I'm sure he possessed enough control to keep me from seeing that he intended to die." Kaworu was not all-powerful, and forget all-knowing.

The next question: "How far has your relationship progressed? Are there any plans for marriage, or do you plan to take pilot Fuyutsuki to SEELE territory?"

'Pilot Fuyutsuki' – Shinji would have been happier with the person who asked that question if he didn't suspect that they'd phrased it that way to work the 'hero in clutches of vile abomination' angle. "I'm fourteen," he said bluntly.

"We have discussed getting married eventually, but so far he hasn't even visited my home. Not when that would violate UN law," Kaworu explained, then glanced at Shinji. "We've discussed this: Since his parents were traitors, Shinji takes his oath to defend the UN seriously, and making any plans to leave or marry me without official permission would be defection, a violation of his oaths. I hope to marry him someday, but I haven't pressed him when this is something important to him, and leaving without permission would mean he could never see his family again. So far Misato Katsuragi's trip to retrieve Kaji's remains is the only time a UN representative has entered SEELE territory with official permission from both sides." As opposed to SEELE sending Tabris to go and fetch someone for them to talk to, or the UN launching attacks. If Shinji defected or Tabris just took him, it was _very _unlikely that would be repeated.

Kaworu talking like he was so honorable made Shinji embarrassed, especially since he already had decided that he'd defect if that was the only option, but, "I'm a citizen of the UN and a NERV pilot, and Tabris has his people. How everything works out, what we can do depends on the peace process more than us."

"Will you retain official power over SEELE's territory, or will you exercise control through the King of the Lilim?" She didn't read it with air quotes around 'King of the Lilim' but the intent still bled through.

Tabris looked dismayed, with a note of sad lack of surprise. "…I realize that I haven't given interviews in UN territory before, but really, there was no need to worry about offending me with that question. I will still be Refuge's Protector of the Realm as long as my people need me, but more than that, after the revelation of the old men's deceit, it has been made clear to me that my people will not accept a government by the council, and certainly not by a soldier of the UN, unless it is overseen by me. Surrendering too much power would create public anxiety needlessly. I intend to retain the power I've officially wielded since Refuge's creation, but I do hope to return to intervening in governmental affairs only rarely." He'd been SEELE's god-prince long before he became the ruling prince of the realm and started really using that power.

"Does that mean encroaching on the council or just watching their souls?" Shinji wanted to know.

"During the transition I was encroaching, but I'm working on some legal limits on the use of that power. Especially since the Cherubim will wield it once they're old enough to be taught how, if they don't figure it out on their own," Kaworu told him. "It was already understood by our legal system that if you were worried about being encroached on to verify your honesty or loyalty, then you shouldn't run for office. The feeling among my people is that it would have been better if that was applied a little more broadly, and that from now on, no exceptions should be made." The way they had been made for the old men, the founding members and core of SEELE. "I've been our judicial branch's overseer and court of last resort from the beginning," because he made a fairly good lie detector. His ability to sense emotions might not be perfect, but he certainly could spot if someone was odd or controlled enough to be able to manage deception, and sociopaths were easy to spot.

"The trouble is that there's no Fifth Amendment precedent or equivalent: refusing to consent to encroachment would be taken as admission of guilt. Or worse. It's nowhere near as difficult for possible UN sympathizers in Refuge as it is for those you suspect, since we don't have anywhere near as much violence as you do. Still, they would lose their current position and be deprived of future opportunities." He sighed. "I used to just not tell people until I was already done if I saw that they were uncomfortable, but that's… a bit like what Misato Katsuragi accused me of. As well as what Shinji said about instrumentality. That it's not right to make decisions like that for other people, and that protecting their hearts against their wishes is not really respecting those hearts."

In theory, Shinji was aware that there was something called 'due process' that a bunch of countries still at least paid lip service to, but in practice a decade and a half of war and the risk of infiltrators belonging to a group that had killed billions and wanted to finish off the world had put it up there with unicorns and the tooth fairy, at least for organizations like NERV Intelligence. "What's the Fifth Amendment?"

"The right to not incriminate yourself, without silence being taken as admission of guilt. It protects not just the guilty," Tabris explained, "but those who have other reasons for not talking. Or not agreeing to encroachment."

Shinji blinked, because yeah, NERV Intelligence would err on the side of 'they're probably guilty of something.' They were tasked with protection the Evas and pilots that ensured the survival of the world: what kind of person would prioritize something else over the world's survival and remain silent when NERV needed information? Especially since the Occam's Razor explanation was that they were a SEELE sympathizer, so people would know that unless they talked, that was what would be assumed. That meant that remaining silent was asking for it.

"As I said, most of the legal codes that might be useful either don't really apply to encroachment or are dated enough that they're not practical in today's world," Tabris agreed. "And our legal experts have been determinedly unhelpful when it comes to anything that might limit my power."

Shinji opened his mouth again, but then he remembered that right, Kaworu was supposed to be answering the reporters' questions, not Shinji's questions, and bringing up encroachment as though it was every okay that Tabris used it as all was a dumb thing to do. "Sorry, I'm distracting you from their questions, aren't I." Looking over at the event organizer, he asked, "Should I?" as he motioned in the direction of the edge of the platform where he'd been standing before.

"All in favor of Pilot Shinji Fuyutsuki continuing to answer questions, raise your hands." A forest of hands rose up. "All opposed?" The hands fell like buildings during an Eva battle.

"What was that last one again?" Shinji asked, looking really apologetic and embarrassed.

"Will you retain official power over SEELE's territory, or will you exercise control through the King of the Lilim?"

"I don't know if they're even going to obey me," Shinji objected. "I'll probably have to ask Tabris to get them to do stuff. I mean, I'm Gendo Ikari's biological son, The Great Traitor's _real _son and Misato Katsuragi's heir. That's like… Well, Tabris _did _show up in Tokyo-3, but you get the idea. Dad's only letting him in the house because he's my boyfriend, and if he got spotted anywhere else, a lot of people would be putting expended ammunition on their expense reports. This would be more like putting him in charge of the UN. I mean, I know Kaworu's people like him, but _that much? I _would be shooting at me, if I was in their position!"

"Once they…"

Shinji interrupted Kaworu to say, "You kept thinking that everyone will like everyone else. You are just way too nice." He almost wanted to pat him on the head, because that was a childishly simple and idealistic view and not how it worked at all. "The only reason I think this King of the Lilim thing is a good idea at _all _is that it might make the negotiations easier and it's probably better over the long term." Kaworu was way too nice and trusting and Shinji wanted him to stay that way. "So it's a step in the right direction, and hopefully Refuge will start trusting their democratic council again instead of trying to make Kaworu do everything once having Kaworu do everything is no longer an option. I mean, if the alternative is having to take orders from an enemy soldier? They'll be a lot more motivated to limit the power of their head of state if that head of state is me." Good, some people were smiling now, despite Shinji being stupid and bringing up encroachment. In a 'of course Tabris used this at some point (because he's an abomination)' way, too. "I mean, I used to make Kaworu do all my booking, so I understand why they want him to run their country, but Kaworu's just getting busier and busier and I don't like where this is going." He wanted some time with his boyfriend all to himself, dammit.

Kaworu was smiling too, so that went well, Shinji thought. "Next question, I guess?"

The organizer hesitated over the next card, but seemed to decide that the risk of annihilation was part of what justified her salary. Shinji hoped she was getting hazard pay for this. Probably: his Dad was good about that sort of thing. Except, "After he found out your true nature and did not accept your messages for months, isn't it suspicious that you were able to seduce the pilot into spending the night with you on the night he first saw you in your true form? Was that a condition of handing over the bodies of Keel and the others?"

Shinji went red. "We played music together! I know it's not going to happen, but it would be nice if people stopped saying perverted things about my boyfriend!" He really hoped Kaji was exaggerating when he explained to Shinji what the internet was like all those years ago. "He barely even _has _a sex drive!" When he realized what he just said? His face was still red, but now it was blushing instead of anger.

"I truly hoped that Misato would let Shinji come and see me, and I may have mentioned his name in the message I sent Ritsuko Akagi, but that was not a condition," Kaworu said, putting his hand on Shinji's arm since Shinji had folded his arms defensively, wanting to have some barrier against the world if he couldn't run away. "My dearest wish was to see Shinji again. That he was willing to play with me again… I was truly happy." That smile at the memory: people would know that Kaworu was the most beautiful creature ever to exist after this broadcast, Shinji just knew it. "It's alright, Shinji: I'm sure they're already aware that I'm not like the Lilim. My body may be half-Lilim, but at least this part of how I think is shaped by my soul. I don't experience physical desire the way the Lilim do. To be close to another is a wonderful thing, but if it didn't make Shinji happy, if he didn't want to be close to me? That would be heartbreaking, not something to crave."

"And it wasn't like I didn't accept his messages," Shinji muttered unhappily. "Misato didn't let them reach me, so I didn't know he'd bothered to write to me at all until Kaji was dead."

Noticing movement out of the corner of his eyes, Shinji turned to see Hyuga coming up onto the platform. He went over to the event planner and took her microphone long enough to say, "Sorry for the delay: Armisael is having an anxiety attack and we still haven't managed to pry her loose from Unit 02."

Shinji winced: Yeah, had watching the broadcast made her realize just how many people would be staring at her? And if they'd let her see Misato talking to Kaworu like that? Of course she'd be scared and not want anything to do with it. "Does Ritsuko think it's a good idea to keep trying, or should we let her calm down and reschedule that part?"

Hyuga looked at Tabris: he was the one who had been lured here with the promise of getting to meet his sisters.

"If she's that distressed, then it isn't right to separate her from Dr. Sohryu." Kaworu wondered why they were even asking. "Even if Unit 02 could come here, that would be cruel. Lilim can detect when other Lilim are focusing on them, so Armisael would surely feel the pressure of their regard. If she's not up to dealing with an audience of hundreds, that's understandable. Hostility is a poison that hangs in the air, a terrible darkness. I understand why our meeting must take place in the light of day, in front of witnesses, but… She may be ancient as an angel, but she is very young as a Lilim, and even Lilim need years to learn how to deal with other Lilim. If she needs years before she can do this without being overwhelmed, then I will wait, for her sake." He didn't want them to push Armisael on his account. "I'm happy that I was able to give Rei her gift myself." Reaching into his sleeve again, Kaworu drew out another handful of silk that he unfurled to reveal flickering flames. "Would you give this to Armisael? I thought it might remind her of Unit 02."

And it completed the set, Shinji realized. Clouds for Kaworu, sky and heavens. Mountains for Shinji, with gold, earth and metal. Waves for Rei: had Kaworu heard that quote from Ritsuko, calling her light and water something? Now fire for Armisael, a many-colored weave. The color of LCL was in there, to match her eyes, but so was Unit 02's paint color.

Looking at it a little longer, Shinji realized that it didn't quite match the others. They were embroidered and this one was painted. Perhaps because embroidery took a lot longer, and since Kaworu's people had Shinji's wardrobe to make up they'd decided to wait until Armisael decided what she liked before they made her something more complicated?

Wouldn't it be horrible if they did spend hundreds of hours working on a robe, and Armisael wore it to see Kyoko, slipped, and fell in the LCL? It wouldn't dissolve immediately, but the spotting and fraying would ruin something meant to be exquisite.


	32. There For You

Shinji knocked on her door, hearing the sound of solid wood. Most doors had hollow cores to reduce weight and save wood, or plywood anyway. Not here.

He had to knock again before Misato responded, "Leave the beer by the door!"

"It's Shinji!" he called back, feeling a little better that she hadn't been avoiding him. Unlike everyone else in this house, Shinji didn't have a very distinctive knock. "Is that…" Okay?

"You can come in," she said, hearing the worried note in his voice.

"So?" Misato wondered as Shinji edged nervously around the door to see her sitting on the couch in her common area, finishing another can of beer and putting it in the half-built pyramid on the coffee table.

Shinji would have been less worried about her consumption, seeing that there was only one incomplete pyramid, if he hadn't had to pick his way through elaborate beer-can designs laid out on the floor in order to reach her. The pyramids were just to hold them until she had enough raw materials to justify getting up, it looked like.

For Misato's sake, he was just really glad that public safety regulations after the Eternal Summer started reduced the alcohol content of most beer. The damage from Second Impact broke or contaminated a lot of areas' water supplies, and trouble with sanitations on top of that exposed a lot of people to water-borne disease. Since there were places in the world that hadn't had to worry about water-borne disease in a half-century, and populations were more vulnerable to diseases that their immune systems hadn't had to deal with in a long time? Water-borne diseases were far from the only diseases that would take advantage of a situation with dead bodies everywhere, but they hadn't helped already-strained health systems and diseases out of history books got more attention.

The sheer amount of beer cans here worried Shinji, but at least he was relieved to see that they were only drinking beer. Otherwise, he would have had to call an ambulance and Misato was probably angry enough with him already. "Were you up all night?" Even though that was a bad sign for her emotional state, at least that would mean that she'd spaced them out more.

She was his big sister, and he couldn't help worrying about her.

"I shouldn't have said that," Misato said, throwing her head back onto the back of the couch and staring up at the ceiling, which wasn't answering his question and probably meant the answer was yes. "No, I should have said that years ago, and not on TV, when it could fuck everything up. You nearly got killed, and Hyuga had to shoot that guy, all over damn Tabris? And couldn't he have the grace to be one of those assholes who are all 'it was just a joke' when they say things that aren't fucking funny instead of being so serious and respectful and trying so hard and Dad was right: I _did _want to ruin it for him. _Him_, not _them_."

Them? Shinji wondered, but told his inner Kaji that this was supposed to be about Misato, and jumping on a slip of the tongue to try to extract information when his sister was like this was just not right. "You don't need to apologize to me."

Misato levered her head back up to stare at him. "Well, I'm damn well not apologizing to your boyfriend. He deserved that."

Shinji wondered if he should say that she didn't need to apologize to anyone, but that wasn't right. "You did apologize to Dad, right?" It sounded like they'd talked.

"Yeah, for nearly screwing up the peace process. I'm just lucky my inner voice of reason managed to keep me from going _too _far."

She just kept dropping hints that there was something that Shinji really needed to know about, and it was hard for Shinji's mind not to home in on them.

Which was why Misato was doing it, he realized. She was planning to use this as a distraction, as a lure, dance around with it while he tried to grab for information without actually telling him anything in order to keep him from asking about _her_. It helped that he knew his best chance of actually finding out anything helpful was to refuse to be distracted so she hopefully kept dropping broader and broader hints, trying to lure him astray.

So, "People are used to you fighting? I think it probably helped," Shinji said, tilting his head to the side and trying not to sound as though he was grasping at straws to make her feel better. "After that, a lot fewer people think that NERV is going soft on abominations." The poll results were already up, and even if Shinji had never been allowed internet access in his life, Hyuga had taken over Kaji's task of giving update briefing packets to people like Shinji, Misato, Ritsuko and his Dad.

"After I tried to kill him on live TV, or at least that's what it looked like. I knew it wouldn't work: now I'm the one making a joke out of people trying their hardest by faking it? The heroine and her arch-nemesis," Misato said sourly, flinging her head back again. "You know I used to wear my hair a bit like Sailor Moon? Not the buns, obviously, but the bangs. Know how hard it was to keep them curled like that despite the LCL?"

Shinji shook his head.

"I wonder if he could tell you?" Misato wondered. "There were people who did make-up before photoshoots… well, you know about that." From his appearances, especially plugsuited. "I couldn't look worse than some damn…" Thing. "He acted lonely, a bit, trying too hard, but what did he know about being fucking lonely? Try being locked up in a room, tied to a chair, no one talking to you or treating you like a human being for years, just a _thing_. While he was their little pet, their little prince: when I thought it wasn't an act, it pissed me off more. Because what the hell did _he _have to complain about? Compared to me, to you…" She shook her head.

Shinji carefully stalked closer to the red leather couch, avoiding the cans laid out in the shape of Unit 00's original headpiece.

"The wars back then… I missed them because I was locked up, but according to the soldiers I met, SEELE was almost a godsend, you know? It got everyone pointed in the same direction. It gave us a target besides each other. I jumped at the chance to be the poster girl, but I guess he wasn't all that happy about being our poster boy. Theirs, too. You know, I used to be a little pissed off that SEELE propaganda _didn't _demonize me? All their stuff referred to me as the 'First Child' and how I would be helping fight the other angels. Like I was just 'misguided' or something, but I was still fighting for the Lilim and I would be an important part of getting them their damn instrumentality. As though everything I did to fight them was just futile." She laughed. "I guess it was, huh? People died, but it's not like those bastards cared. I never managed to hurt them at all, did I? Everything I did, everything I fought for, played right into their hands. I should have been more pissed off, pissed off enough to realize that I was doing something wrong, that I wasn't hitting them where it hurt, and figure out a way to do that. But I was too angry and I didn't want to think."

"That's… You're being unfair to yourself, Misato," Shinji said as he sat down on the couch next to her.

"Well, life is unfair. Doesn't make it any less real," she pointed out, ignoring his proximity instead of shifting towards or away from him. "I don't really think I could have seduced him away from them, if that' s what you're talking about. I'm not blaming myself. I get it: they're expert manipulators and I get furious and waste alcohol in front of half the planet. But I could have suggested it to somebody or… Dammit, I know our side had profilers. Kaji was one of them. Is that part of it? I thought Kaji was just supposed to get close to me, but did they have him, other people in UN Intelligence trying to make sure we never barked up the right trees? No, we know they did." The real reason the witch hunts just wouldn't stop was that they were justified: SEELE really _had _infiltrated the UN. They were behind the UN's rise to power: they wanted to make sure the government they backed was the one that ended up running the world for them. How they used Refuge was how they originally planned to use the UN. "They thought that all there was to people were hatred, fear and anger. If you feel any of those things, it's hard to think, hard to be fair. Hate, or love. They made their people love him, they made ours hate him. Clever bastards." But that obviously didn't make her feel any better. "So, how's public opinion?"

"Well, me seducing him to our side now sounds a little more credible to people," Shinji said, looking away a little.

"That's because of what he said to me, not because of what I did." Shinji shouldn't give her any credit for it.

"He wouldn't have said anything like that if you hadn't managed to make him mad." Shinji looked down at his hands now. "You were right about the, the laughing it off. And the racism. That's how he hides, how he protects his heart. That it's just how Lilim are, so he doesn't have to take it personally. It doesn't help that people were so much nicer to him when they didn't know what he was."

"Who he was," Misato corrected him. "_He's _the one that defended SEELE."

Shinji had to nod: that was her point, and a good one. That it wasn't entirely unfair for people to hate Shinji's Tabris, as much as Shinji wanted to defend him.

"So you haven't chosen a side yet?" she asked him.

"I don't want to." Shinji frowned. "And that wouldn't help him, either. You're my family, not my enemies, and thinking that being on his side means not being on yours… thinking that way won't help anything."

"Point," she acknowledged, toasting him with her current beer can.

"To me he's… Kaworu, and the rest of it is stuff that I have to put up with because I love him, like he has to put up with my family." The Great Traitor and his arch-nemesis. "Most people think of him as the abomination first. Something not human." It made Shinji really sad. "If he's not like us, then he has to be better or worse than us, because he can't be the same as us if he's not like us. It's a little like how people talk about the contaminated kids," like Shinji, "but much worse. Since most people at least accept that we're human, even if we're tainted with something else, but everyone agrees he's not human. Even him. Even if he's genetically human and half our kind of human."

Shinji wished he had his own beer can to fiddle with: his hands wanted to fidget unless he clasped them together otherwise. "No one ever treated him just like everyone else if they knew what he was. The only way he could be treated like a person was to pretend to be something he wasn't." So that just made it clearer that everyone else thought he wasn't a person. "Maybe a little of why I can understand is because of what I am." Not just the son of the Ikaris, but the human with the highest contamination ratio. "And how people talk about me, and act around me. Except I had you and Dad, Misato, and he didn't. It's because of you guys that I, I know I heal faster and everything, but I'm still human, and I know that people can still treat me like a person." Still love him. "So I think about what would have happened to me if people like my parents and SEELE were just using me as a tool. I don't think I'd be anywhere near as noble as Kaworu. I don't think it would be that easy for me to just keep trying to connect with people."

Now Misato shifted closer, to sweep an arm around him and pull him against her, and inwardly Shinji though _Score! _He hated talking about himself like that, he hated playing for pity, but if Misato was feeling sorry for him then she wasn't feeling sorry for herself that much.

The modified Wounded Gazelle Gambit: if you showed weakness, jerks would move in to finish you off, but family would move in to help. Cheering him up would make Misato feel better: Shinji had claimed to still have nightmares a few times so that Misato felt it was okay to keep using him as a teddy bear when Kaji and Ritsuko were out for one reason or another. Especially after Rei arrived and Ritsuko started spending nights at NERV to monitor and protect Rei.

"I want people to like me, so if I did something and people said that I was helping, that it made them proud of me… My parents planned to use me as an Eva pilot, right? And use me to destroy the world? It's the same thing. If it weren't for Dad, I really would have ended up just like Kaworu, right?" Shinji said, trying to ignore that his face was pressed in the corner between Misato's arm and the side of her breast. If only being in a relationship with Kaworu made it easier to ignore things like that. It was almost worse now, because breasts were supposed to equal sex and now Shinji had personal experience of how sex with someone else was really great so a part of him was like, 'Sex? Where?!' even though Kaworu didn't even _have_ these bits. Lilith did and Adam had, but Kaworu didn't and Shinji was trying not to think about whether or not Kaworu could ever learn how to shapechange and be comfortable enough to actually want to do it.

Puberty was _awful._ Lucky Kaworu who didn't have to wake up and realize that his body was now a total pervert that kept getting turned on without Shinji wanting to be and actually, Kaworu had it just as bad, didn't he? Since he had the merge drive. There weren't physical signs (wouldn't it suck for Kaworu if his core kept appearing in public and people knew what that meant?) but even if Shinji's hindbrain wanted to have sex and not think about what other people wanted, Kaworu's hindbrain wanted to merge even if that might _kill everyone_.

Shinji might be _really disturbed _by some of the dreams and fantasies his brain came up with, but Kaworu realizing that part of his brain got turned on by the thought of _killing everyone_ like that? No wonder Kaworu had wanted to die. Wanting to do things with Misato when she was his sister was gross and perverted enough to make Shinji want to curl up and die, but that? And that dream that had started out strangling Asuka because she'd managed to make him really furious and then… Shinji cringed at the memory of waking up feeling absolutely _disgusting_. What kind of horrible person…

"Shinji," Misato said, rubbing his back, and Shinji swallowed and tried to think of cold water. Old pictures of glaciers. Icicles-_Not _icicles, because they were a certain shape and pale like Kaworu mostly was. "I want to say you're not like him." Misato sounded sour. "But you'd take that as insulting him and I shouldn't do that in front of you."

"He's my Kaworu," Shinji said, focusing on that. "Not that I own him, but it feels like he belongs with me. Not to me, _with _me. The way you guys are _my _family."

"Do you really think it would be that different if we brought Tabris home instead of Rei?" Misato wondered. "Is this really destiny or something with AT fields, souls, whatever, or is it that you met him as a human first?" Wouldn't Shinji have rejected him the way he'd rejected Rei, if he'd met Tabris as Tabris?

"…I'd like to think that if I met him differently he'd still be Kaworu, but if we'd met differently, then we might both be different people. If he was raised by Ritsuko instead of SEELE that would be different, and Rei's seven years younger than I am. I like Kaworu because we were partners." That was part of it. "He helped me and we did things together. Rei, even if we did play together, it would be like Kaji and Ritsuko playing with me. I am about twice her age." Shinji looked to the side the way he did when he didn't want to admit something even though Misato couldn't see his eyes. "I may just be making up excuses, though. I know I wasn't fair to Rei."

"You tried," Misato said, patting him on the head. "You failed, you failed very obviously," crashed and burned, "and it was clear that you didn't want to try, but most people didn't want to try and didn't make any attempt and the more I keep talking the worse it sounds, huh? Not just about you and Rei, about all of us and Tabris." Rei was Lilith's host, 'their' abomination, so what chance had Tabris had of ever being accepted?

"Since they're not human, even though they are. Kaworu's… He's the kindest and most caring person I know. Maybe I would think that was proof that he wasn't human instead of that he's as human as anyone, but I have you guys, and you're kind and caring." Provided you were family or weren't SEELE, in Misato's case? "He says that I'm everything he loves about the Lilim, but he's everything I love about people too." Shinji blushed. "Music, and just being with people and being accepted instead of hated for who I am, and someone that listens and needs me but doesn't act like I have to do anything," the way his family had tried to shield him from the people who said 'the only justification for letting this boy live is using him as an Eva pilot' between his parents and his contamination level. "He appreciates me, and wants to make me happy so I want to make him happy." Shinji frowned and slumped against Misato. "I'm sorry. This was supposed to be about cheering you up, not talking about how wonderful my boyfriend is."

"…Have you been feeling a little like Rei? Like if we hate Kaworu, then what about you?" Misato wondered.

Shinji snorted. "No way. It's more like I know you guys love me, so I want you to love him. He's a lot more loveable than I am."

"Partially because he's dumber."

"He's smart," Shinji said in Kaworu's defense. "He knows every language and that's not just because he can look at stuff online. It's just that… like bonsai." He felt that dark hatred well up inside him, found his hands clenching into fists. "Doing things, twisting a tree to make it grow into the shape you want instead of the shape it wants to be. There are things he just doesn't see that he _should _see, he's smart enough to, but Keel didn't want him to see them. Didn't want him to think that way. The stuff you said about Kaworu… That was all he was given to cling to for comfort. That Lilim hatred was just how we were, it wasn't _real_, we didn't _really _mean those awful things we said to him. That if we just listened, if we'd just talk to him like a normal person, the way we did when he pretended to be a normal person?" The way Shinji did when Tabris wore the guise of Kaworu. "It hurts him, Misato. What everyone says. Just like what everyone says about me. Kaworu, Kaworu is just like me."

"So you are worried about how we feel about you," Misato knew, rubbing Shinji's back again. "If he's like you, and we hate him? If we reject him even though you love him, isn't that rejecting you too?"

It wasn't very Kaji-like to feel a tightness well up in his throat. He hated crying, but Misato was here, was holding him, and this worked with the plan, didn't it? She'd know that he still loved and trusted her, that he didn't bear any grudges if he let himself cry in her arms. If he trusted her with that weakness. "It's not just about me," he managed though. "He's… He's like me, so… If I hadn't had you…" That was such a scary thought. "Everyone would hate me if it weren't for you." If the heroic Professor and Misato Katsuragi hadn't taken him in, hadn't defended the son of the Ikaris. Hadn't justified his continued existence by saying he could be an Eva pilot, just like Rei. "And he doesn't have anyone but me, and that could have been me, I might not have had anyone but him." Because Kaworu loving him was in the prophecies, wasn't it? No matter what happened, he would have had Kaworu's love no matter what?

Except Kaworu would have been sent to die at the hands of Shinji's Eva, he would have lost that precious love and had _nothing_ and Shinji couldn't ever leave Kaworu because then Kaworu would be all alone in a sea of people who saw him as either god or demon, but never another person. Without his family, Shinji would have been just a tool to the UN and NERV, there was no way they would have let him spare Kaworu, let him keep that one precious person.

Shinji knew how to fake crying.

He didn't need to.


	33. Darkest Night

"What would you like to do when you can finally visit my home?" Kaworu asked, paging through sheet music to pick out some things they might play next time.

"What do I always do when I go to a new place with you?" Shinji wondered as he packed away his cello. How had he ever survived piloting that thing and fighting other abominations without the solace of music? Without the serenity of this sunlit room, the presence of his friend… Lover… The word lover also seemed inadequate, and Kaworu wasn't his fiancé until Shinji managed to covertly secure an adequate ring.

Other half? No, that made it seem like they were just parts of the same person. _Sometimes_ they were one being, but that was a matter of mixing, not rejoining. Their souls could become one, but Shinji wanted to be _with _Kaworu, not just part of Kaworu. If they weren't two, then they couldn't be with each other. Maybe their souls belonged together, maybe they matched, but Shinji couldn't possibly be any part of Kaworu, not when Kaworu was so… He was drawn to him, and maybe there was an element of the relief of finding a missing piece when he was finally reunited with Kaworu in the embassy, but they were two souls joined together, not one torn apart.

That was when Shinji realized that there _was _a word for that. Soulmates.

It seemed simultaneously too romantic and too unromantically literal. 'Soulmates' were the stuff of fantasy, something that just wasn't going to happen outside of delusions, and Shinji didn't want to call what he had with Kaworu something that might melt away in the light of the morning sun. Then there was how angels reproduced, and yes, their souls were mates. Like naturalists talking about how animals, how things that weren't human had mates and matings instead of love the way humans, the way people did. So on that level it felt like calling them soul mates would be calling this something less than love, Kaworu something less than human.

Yet even though it bothered him Shinji knew that yes, this was the word, that was what this feeling was when he felt Kaworu's eyes on him and grew warm. When Kaworu gazed at Shinji with his eyes unfocused, admiring a part of Shinji that Lilim couldn't see that clearly.

It made Shinji worry for a bit that Kaworu only loved him because his soul was hot or something, but then he remembered the day before yesterday and his reaction to Misato's breasts. Yes, people had bits of them that were hot, but that wasn't the same thing as love. Shinji should just be glad that Kaworu thought he was beautiful, and he was a little relieved that his soul wasn't an eyesore or anything. What if his soul wasn't Kaworu's type? That would be awful. At least Kaworu found Shinji attractive: so what if it wasn't Shinji's body that he was attracted to?

"Map it. Learn where all the entrance, exits and possible sniper vantage points are," Kaworu knew. "You're getting much better at telling when Lilim are watching you." So was that really necessary? In Kaworu's home? There were guards. Did Shinji see it as enemy territory, just like Shinji's home was for Kaworu? Well, it was SEELE territory.

It was also where Kaji died. Shinji's paranoia was understandable, Kaworu knew. It usually was.

"Thanks to you helping me practice." Kaworu could mimic auras and focus that light on Shinji with more strength than a lilim soul would produce. That let Shinji become consciously aware of the different kinds of regard, what they felt like, and what kinds of sensations to look for. Once he knew that, it was easier for him to still sense it when Kaworu reduced the intensity to normal levels.

Kaworu had confessed to watching other public speakers and doing what they did to project charisma and get attention, although a stronger AT field let him put more strength into that projection. There were Lilim who could command the attention of crowds with sheer force of presence and will, flaring the light of their souls, so Shinji didn't think it was unfair for Kaworu to do the exact same thing they were doing. The only difference was that Kaworu understood what it was that he was doing.

So there wasn't really any need to tell his dad that yes, Kaworu was deliberately using his AT field to get certain psychological reactions out of Lilim. It wasn't fair that people would act like it was something evil or dangerous just because it was Tabris.

Shinji _had _told Ritsuko about the training, although he'd turned down her request to put special detectors in Shinji's sitting room because what if they picked up what happened next door in Shinji's bedroom? He was just glad that Kaworu's ability to tell when he was being watched extended to machinery. He'd turned down Kaworu's offer to mimic the auras of his family in order to help Shinji learn to recognize them because that just seemed weird for some reason.

He still wasn't sure if he was starting to enjoy the feeling of Kaworu's light because he'd already been feeling it subconsciously for years and had associated it with the presence of his friend, which meant that feeling Kaworu's light equaled feeling happy, reminded him of all the times he'd spent with Kaworu, or it was an attraction like the ones angels had to Adam and Lilith.

It could be both. Kaji liked to see Misato because she was sexy, but didn't mean he wasn't also happy to see her for other, Misato-related reasons.

Not to mention that Shinji's first experience with Kaworu's aura being strong enough that Shinji consciously felt it was the first time they'd merged, so pleasant associations right there, he thought, blushing a bit. Right, they were talking about him going over to Kaworu's, "Then I want to make you something to eat _before _we go to your music room."

"I'm glad you think you'll like it there," Kaworu said happily, and Shinji could feel his joy. Kaworu knew how much Shinji's own music room meant to Shinji, so any other space, even Kaworu's being someplace Shinji assumed he wouldn't want to leave? Even the embassy's music room was only made special because Kaworu was there and Shinji had played with him there after their long separation. That was one precious memory there, but Shinji had years of them here.

Shinji didn't say anything like 'I want to lie down on your piano and have you touch me like I'm its keys," because that would be impractical, uncomfortable and it might damage the instrument. Damaging _any _instrument was a crime, but knowing how Refuge treated its god-prince Kaworu's piano was probably the kind of antique that deserved to be designated a World Heritage treasure. Just thinking about it made Shinji imagine a disturbance of the force, as though thousands of fellow classical musicians were howling for his blood.

Kaworu's violin probably had an entire article in some registry somewhere: Asuka's did. Well, not 'Kaworu's' violin, the one left behind when he was revealed as Tabris. Not when he'd kept that one in Tokyo-2, where he was posing as a mere wealthy student, not a future hero like Asuka who got gifts suitable for a future hero. Now that Kaworu could teleport back and forth he was bringing his _real _violin with him, and he was making noises about getting Shinji another cello.

No, that wasn't quite right: Shinji was fairly certain that Kaworu already _had _gotten Shinji another cello, and was sounding Shinji out about how willing he was to replace his instrument with another, or how upset Shinji would be if Kaworu had gone to too much trouble and expense for him.

If the instrument Kaworu'd wanted was located in the UN territories, then yes, getting his hands on it would have involved illegal dealings. Shinji was prepared to overlook the smuggling and embargo violations as long as no theft was involved. Obviously _Kaworu _wouldn't steal an instrument from a museum or someone's collection, but Kaworu had worshippers, and given some of the things _Misato's _rabid fans got up to? And of course Kaworu was too trusting to look a gift horse in the mouth and ask to see documentation if someone placed a cello perfect for Shinji among the offerings Refuge rendered onto its god-prince.

Oh. "By the way, I have some bad news," Shinji remembered. "I figured out what my dad and Misato were dropping hints about."

"Should I know?" Tabris wondered. "Or is it something you shouldn't tell me?"

Shinji shook his head. "It's something you shouldn't talk about. Don't even bring it up as something that might possibly happen, even to deny it and reassure people."

Kaworu tilted his head at him. "I will try."

"If it weren't for the fact you might find it out anyway…" Not that Kaworu saw everything in Shinji's head when they merged, or vice versa. Just what came to them in those moments, what they were thinking about when it happened, and generally there wasn't much on either of their minds but each other at that point. Still: "The old men wanted to become one with Adam's soul, as part of instrumentality. I don't think any of my family seriously believes that Keel manipulated you into eating him so that they could control Refuge through you, but since it is possible for people to merge with you and still be intact enough to separate afterwards… No?" Shinji asked when Kaworu shook his head.

"I didn't merge with them," Kaworu explained, looking slightly upset by the thought.

Wait, had Shinji just accused Kaworu of cheating on him? In angel terms? Even though this was before they started _dating_.

"I _ate _them," Kaworu explained. "It is what would have happened to all the Lilim if I'd merged with Lilith and started Third Impact myself, except I downloaded their knowledge in the process instead of deleting it while transforming their souls into raw material. They became a part of me in the same way an apple becomes a part of you when you consume it. Lilim may say 'you are what you eat,' but that apple would not be intact inside of you: there is no part of you that is still 'an apple,' simply a few stray molecules here and there, made part of other structures. At first I only intended to download his knowledge, but I was so distraught by the revelation that I couldn't grant the Lilim instrumentality or complementation, only death, that I tested it."

Kaworu's body curled in on itself a little, shoulders hunching, eyes closing. "There is nothing left that is 'Keel.' Nothing left of the _selves _of any of them. I should have stopped when I knew I couldn't do it, that I couldn't keep the souls of Lilim intact. I… at least I stopped with the old men, instead of asking for volunteers. I wanted to believe that I could do it, that I could keep my promises. I wanted to believe it _so much_, but no matter how much I wanted it, no matter _how hard I tried, I_…" He shook now, arms wrapping around himself. "_Consumption_. That is what is happening to this planet. That is what the soul of Adam will do to the Lilim, and I can't do it differently with the powers I have any more than a fish could use its fins to truly fly. SEELE's true ritual called for the new god to absorb Adam's soul while it was weakened and caged, not for Adam to absorb the Lilim because it doesn't work that way. I can merge in order to create and I can consume in order to fuel that creation. I cannot grant the Lilim instrumentality or complementation."

"Not merging, more like cannibalism." Eating someone's brain didn't _really _mean they'd live on inside you.

Kaworu nodded. "What is happening now, with the LCL: do you think this is the only time a planet has resisted consumption? When billions of years have passed since Adam and Lilith's arrival, when enough of them exist for two of them to strike a single planet so far apart in time in all the vastness of space? I am sure the designers of the seeds must have anticipated the possibility that a white seed could be… thwarted temporarily, even if not destroyed. We are immortal: our souls don't need a physical shell. If Adam's soul wasn't trapped in a body prepared for it, it would have eventually constructed or taken another shell. While it recovered, the LCL would have slowly devoured this world. Would have weakened humanity in preparation for Adam's next assault. Even if he was beaten back a second time, that would only give the LCL more time to work. Humans are protected by AT fields, but you still need food and oxygen in order to _survive_, let alone fight the power of a seed. Alien life would not be protected by an AT field."

The grieving angel looked at his upturned hands, as though he could read something in the lines of those palms. "I asked why the creators of the seeds didn't anticipate a situation like this. Didn't design the angels to recognize and not attack a planet full of fellow humans. It was Keel that pointed out to me that if the Ancestors hadn't even bothered to take that precaution, then what would happen if a seed landed on a world with life of its own? The Ancestors… You Lilim were created in their image."

The Ancestors had been as cruel, as callous towards life that was not like them, as humans were.

"Seeds of Wisdom were created to terraform and support single planets," Kaworu knew, "but seeds of Life? Is this truly the first planet Adam struck, or did the equipment malfunction because the vessel was old? Earth is on the galactic rim, and Sol is one of the oldest third-generation stars in this galaxy. Earth is surely one of the oldest planets suitable for Lilim-like life in this galaxy." Yellow sun, liquid water zone, adequate metals and other elements for a technological civilization. "How many worlds has Adam struck, and taken, and filled with its children until those worlds were destroyed? Before the Rapture, people speculated that the universe might be filled with life that evolved on its own, that life would evolve anywhere it was possible that life could evolve." So how likely was it that those worlds had evolved their own life? What percentage of those worlds might have had _sentient_ life, until the descent of an alien god?

"These hands are mine," Kaworu said, his voice trembling a little, "but this soul tried to wipe out the Lilim. Yes, Adam was provoked, but if she wasn't provoked, she would have awoken and done it anyway. How many times has she, has _my soul_, done this before? How many worlds have been stolen from their inhabitants so that more seeds could sprout, more creator-gods could be brought forth to continue the cycle? To find and _take _worlds of their own? Is having Adam's soul consumed by another god, a _different _kind of God, one with the ability to think and do more than just continue the cycle, the only way to end this?" Kaworu looked around them, at the shelves and stands and pictures of composers. "How many _cultures _have been smashed, reduced to nothing but food for a being that does not even think to hesitate? I…"

"Kaworu." Shinji grabbed his hands as Kaworu started to pull them in tight to his chest. Hugged Kaworu so Kaworu didn't have to hug himself. "You're not a monster! That's what they wanted you to think, wanted you to believe! That you were obligated to us somehow, that you had to, that you didn't have any other choice because you _are _a good person, and…" How did he get this through to Kaworu, when he was so unhappy and Shinji couldn't stand to see him like this any longer?

"I know that you love me but that does not change what I am!" Kaworu said before Shinji could even suggest merging so Kaworu could see Shinji loved him despite this, would love him no matter what. Well, of course that was what Kaworu's mind would have jumped to, when Shinji's thought more in terms of comfort sex. Of kissing at Kaworu's neck and combing through Kaworu's hair like he was precious, worth taking care of and Shinji was a monkey or something? That might be animal instinct, what to do to make people know that you love them and want to take care of them, but Kaworu's instincts were different. Shinji doubted angels needed someone to pick bugs off them.

"Exactly!" Shinji suddenly realized. Kaworu'd said it himself: thank goodness, because Shinji didn't know what to say. "I love you, and that has nothing to do with what you are! What you are doesn't matter! Who you are, why I love you: what you are has nothing to do with anything important! It doesn't matter, Kaworu, it doesn't matter to me," he said with his arms around his lover's back, chests pressed together as though if Shinji hugged Kaworu tightly enough he would press Kaworu into his body, they'd merge and Kaworu would _see_. "How much of that is even what they know and how much of that is them wanting you to assume the worst? So you'd do what they wanted, think that they wanted… be hurt the way they wanted! They wanted you to hurt like this and I'm glad you couldn't become one with them! They don't deserve to touch your soul, they don't deserve to be a part of you!"

Wait.

Shinji froze, blue eyes wide and worried. "…Was that the first time you killed someone on purpose?" he asked, trying to sound gentle. Sure, there were deaths during some of Tabris and Misato's battles. That was inevitable once the advantage of the AT field was no longer on one side only and battles involved ordinary troops on both sides. Shinji was sure Tabris held himself responsible for most if not all of those deaths, but it wasn't like Kaworu would have wanted to kill anyone.

There was a difference between battle, accident and deciding to do something knowing that doing it might end the life of a fellow human being.

"Not Keel," Kaworu said, eyes downcast because he knew that Shinji did want Keel dead, that Shinji hated him, and he might be upset that Kaworu still didn't hate him, exactly. Not enough to kill him. "I was angry, I wanted to prove him wrong-I wanted him to be wrong. Then I felt myself break him, like teeth biting into an apple, and felt what was left of him dissolve in me until there was nothing left that was Keel. Nothing left that I could even identify as coming from him. I don't even really remember walking through the halls to where I could find a second, I was desperately clinging to the thought that this had to be an aberration, just because I was furious with Keel, and so… Before, before it never occurred to me that there was any possibility that I might not be able to do this. It was what I was _for_. My _purpose, _what I would do for my people, what justified my existence. All this power: how was it not possible for me to do this? I didn't think that it was possible to fail with Keel, or with the second. After the second, I doubted. I didn't want to doubt. I didn't stop. I knew with the third that I might truly kill him, that I might end his soul, and I couldn't face that, that there was no hope. So I devoured him, and failed, and went on to the next, trying to lie to myself that it was a matter of practice, and had not the members of SEELE promised instrumentality to the world? Didn't they proclaim that they would do whatever it took?"

To other people, Shinji thought, but he really, really doubted they were willing to personally suffer something like this. Lose their souls and their chance to become gods. Die beyond any hope of being brought back by Kaworu's power, the way Ritsuko speculated.

"I, I, it was hard to stop with the last of them. The true secret council. There were others who were involved in their secrets, their crimes, who had some of the true knowledge: I could have gone on to them. If-When I failed with all of them, I could have asked for volunteers from my people, and I _wanted to_. Because, without this, what good was I? What did people put their faith in me for?" Shinji held on to Kaworu as his angel, his love fell slowly to his knees, barely holding back tears. "I, I, that I was even willing to _think _of that? That was, that was when my faith was broken. That is why I cannot believe even in the true, secret ritual. Because I _failed_. I felt their souls crumble to pieces, drops of water falling into the ocean, and the thought of that happening to any more of the Lilim, to you and all the people who _trusted _me because of _me _and how credulous I was? How much I _wanted _to believe that there would be a happy ending for you, Shinji? A happy ending for _us?_"

Kaworu pressed his face against Shinji's neck. "I wanted to see you again. I wanted to see you again _so much_, and the thought of seeing your glimmering light, feeling the touch of your soul for only a moment before it _shattered in my hands, _was ground between the teeth of a great beast?" A true monster, a devourer of worlds? "I had to see you, I had to see you safe and well, I needed to hear your song and see you stand in my presence unafraid."

Was this how Kaworu truly felt that night at the embassy? So desperate, in shock from his first, his first murders? Even if in the UN's mind they were executions and _anyone _was authorized to kill Keel or any of them provided they could manage it, no matter what it took. To Kaworu, these were the men who, well, had him raised.

With his world crumbling around him, wanting to flee to Shinji's arms, Kaworu had still managed to think. To start the peace process. To show his sister that he cared for her with gentle hands that didn't reveal that Kaworu was beginning to think that he was a monster, and if Rei was the same as him?

To refrain from embracing Shinji until the end, in order not to startle him? No, to _let Shinji go_ when his father called?

Shinji couldn't imagine ever being that strong himself, but the thought that Kaworu had to be that strong, ever? "You, you should have let me see that you were that upset. Not just acting like you needed the music as much as I did, when you needed it so much more."

"I was worried that Misato Katsuragi wouldn't let me have even that much time that you, or Ritsuko Akagi would somehow detect that there was a hunger in me and run away with you for your own safety."

"Yes, but then they left." Misato to talk to the ambassador, Ritsuko to take Rei home before anyone found them there and accused Rei of possessing them and dragging them to Tabris' clutches or something. "I knew you were nervous, but I thought it was about _me_."

"Shinji… It was about you," Tabris said in almost a whisper. "You were the only one who could make me feel better. The only one who I would not, _could not _destroy. Unless the prophecies were lies as well." And he might slay Shinji too.

The white seed? It sounded pure, noble, but white was also the color of death.

* * *

_In the anime, Kaworu was the first time Shinji killed in cold blood something that he acknowledged as a fellow human being, and a pretty decent one. You know, the kind of thing that happens in real wars. Innocent people get killed in wars. Soldiers have to kill people who are good people, trying to defend their homes and families, people they could have been friends with, but unfortunately those people are on the other side. Then they have to live with this. The psych damage Shinji took from killing Kaworu? That's normal. An amazing number of America's street people are veterans, driven too insane by it to function. Treating it like this is something special, something that only happens if someone deliberately causes it, is a case of Reality Is Unrealistic. Nope, this kind of thing is the default. _

_Unlike most anime, Eva actually goes into the consequences of someone with a tragic backstory being forced by circumstance to fight and kill, instead of being a sanitized power fantasy so otaku can feel like heroes with harems when really they'd fold under a quarter of the pressure Shinji experiences. Anno hated that bs, and part of the point of Eva was to take a spork to it, to show people what would really happen to real people in that kind of story. Of course it's not pretty. That's realism for you. War is hell: people should know this by now._

_Shinji experienced harming Touji, but that wasn't his will and Touji didn't die (at least in the anime). Kaworu is when Shinji made the decision to kill someone else to save the world. _

_But, to save Shinji, save the Lilim, what would Kaworu do if dying himself isn't an option? How would he deal with the guilt of choosing to end a life? Especially when he says in the anime that he can't understand why anyone would do horrible things (like torture the Evas into obedience – that armor is on them to control them and it's quite painful) just in order to survive themselves. When they discuss why he died (despite his power level and how he just waltzed into Terminal Dogma and there was nothing they could do to stop him), both Shinji and Misato are right: he died because he was too good a person to be willing to kill an entire planet just to survive himself. He wasn't willing to do whatever it took to survive. It's interesting that Misato echoes Kaworu's sentiment about the Evas: 'using something like that, in order to survive…' The difference is that Kaworu can't bring himself to annihilate another race for the sake of the survival of his own, while Misato is quite willing to destroy all the angels. _

_The comparison between Kaworu and Dr. Katsuragi is interesting: both of them wanted someone else to live more than they wanted to live themselves. Misato has issues with her father's death, which is a big part of why she refuses to respect Kaworu's – it's not just racism/assuming he's evil because he's an angel (like the Fan Dumb), and to dismiss it as such is a disservice to Misato._

_Even if SEELE's a bunch of bastards, Kaworu was designed to be a supremely good person. The character does not have it in him to murder them just because he was angry, even if they deserve it, and he would feel guilt over causing their deaths, regardless of how they betrayed him and the world. I didn't want to go into what exactly went down when he 'ate Keel' in the original story/first part of the fic, but I hope that people erred on the side of 'there was a reason for that' instead of just thinking I was being OOC._

_In this universe, Shinji had to come to terms with 'this person was killed so you could live, and you helped that happen/made that happen' years ago, thanks to the assassins._


	34. What Can Go Wrong

_Wanted to tinker with this more, but not quite sure what to do with it, how to get across the points any better, especially when I'm making a few here. Just like Kaworu, Rei in the original anime was intended to fall in the uncanny valley. They're both good people, but they're also godlike engineered humanoid abominations. And being human and adolescent involves things going embarrassingly haywire. _

_As always, feedback and suggestions appreciated._

* * *

Rei frowned, peering at him the way her mother did at a puzzling sample.

"What?" Shinji asked her, going to lean against the wall.

"You look different."

Shinji looked down at himself, adjusting the cuff of the non-plugsuit NERV dress uniform with its red-edged green triangles at the sleeves and throat. "This is a new uniform: I outgrew all my old ones." He'd been wearing this one at the press conference, though.

Her frown deepened, and she closed her eyes for a second. "I _believe _that your hair is different… but I don't think that is it."

"I'm letting it get a little longer," Shinji told her. Not as long as Tabris was growing his, obviously. Rei noticed stuff like that now? Was it because she was now experimenting with and thus paying more attention to her own appearance?

She ignored him, opening her eyes and then closing them again, only to open them two seconds later and repeat the process. "It is not a visible difference." Not something that went away when she closed her eyes. Hmm. "Asuka complained that Kaji smelled of Misato. You have not been in contact with Tabris for over thirty-six hours, and I'm certain you would have showered in that period."

Yes: Rei certainly had picked up Ritsuko's bluntness. Shinji blushed. Well, yes, he would hope so, even if not piloting meant he didn't have to go through NERV's decontamination showers anymore.

"Scent markers would still be possible: spending an hour in a chlorinated pool markedly improved Lilim reactions to me compared to a shower alone."

His eyebrows rose when his… niece? Sister in law? When Rei said that. "You mean I wasn't the only one? I'm glad… Wait, no." Shinji sighed: he shouldn't be glad that other people thought Rei 'smelled.'

Once again, he felt like such a jerk.

"I give off very unusual pheromones compared to normal Lilim. Immune system markers in particular are a key element of human sexual attraction: mating with someone with a different immune system type is important, and humans will often be subconsciously turned off by people with markers similar to themselves or their immediate family. I do not have the 'old people smell' that is evidence of illness and decay, but it seems that my scent marker mix is one that Lilim subconsciously identify as both 'inhuman' and 'like their parents.'"

Shinji needed a moment to process that, then felt bad about staring at her. "That… doesn't justify how I treated you any more than you looking like my mother," and being an abomination, "does."

"The woman Hyuga found is custom blending a perfume for me," she told him. Shinji didn't know how to take that: was she acting as though apologies were unneeded in order to avoid the awkwardness or changing the subject because she didn't want to hear it? "Since perfumes react differently with different Lilim body chemistries, all of the samples she brought smelled different once they were on my skin, and had trouble blending with my natural scent." The sea before it became the Dead Sea, according to Ritsuko.

Shinji wouldn't know.

"She is fairly certain that Tabris' cologne when he posed as Kaworu Nagisa contained artificial human hormones," Rei said, looking a bit pleased. "Lilim have one of the better senses of smell in the animal kingdom, and Adam is far less closely related to the Lilim than I am. If he hadn't done this, then any human who spent a lot of time in close proximity to him," Shinji, "would have eventually become consciously aware that there was something very wrong with him."

"…I would like to think that made a difference," Shinji said finally, since it took him awhile to figure out how to respond to what Rei was really saying there, "but the thing is, Rei, that you reminded me of my mother. A… hybrid, when she made sure that I would be contaminated by proximity to Adam and Lilith and then the fallout before I was born. I'd… I'd like to think that if there was some little thing like that, then I'd have been fair to you. Even if that change was something that made you seem like less of an 'abomination,' which would be pretty racist of me. But I didn't go near you." Whenever he could avoid it. "I… looking at you made me think of my mother, my parents, and if my dad made you this way then were you what my mother was trying to make me? It was about them, Rei, not you. I don't think that there's anything that you or Ritsuko could have done differently. I couldn't deal with thinking about them. Not until I grew up a little more."

He looked past her at the white walls of the swimming pool area. "The blue hair makes you look less like _her_. Maybe you smell a little like her, but Lilith's scent might have been fine if they hadn't already put me in Unit 01 to get me started. I already associated that scent with _her_ before you got here. I didn't reject you because of _you_. I rejected you because thinking of you made me think of _them_ and how they rejected me. You were always my mother's clone and my Dad's abomination. DNA from them, labor from one of them and they mixed a little abomination in… Just like me. The two of us look so much alike, because I look like my mother: I kept thinking, why would he create you when he just could have brought me along and used me? He abandoned his son and made another child instead? I know that's not how it works now, souls and everything, but it wasn't like he saw me as a person either."

A tool, a part: Shinji certainly wouldn't put it past his father to exorcise Shinji's soul and stick someone else's in there if he could and it would advance his plans even a little. "I think what I'm trying to say is that it wasn't about you, Rei. It was about me and my issues. When I looked at you I saw a symbol of almost everything that was wrong with my birth family, and that horrified me. I looked away. I never really managed to look past that symbol and see _you_. So it wasn't you that I was rejecting, Rei. I think that you're a good person, and a brave pilot," a lot braver than Shinji. "I wanted to be fair to you, since you're my niece. I wasn't running away from you or what you are, I just couldn't deal with all the… baggage that surrounded you. You never did anything that would make it fair to reject you. Being cruel to you because of my parents: that's what people did to me, and I was ashamed even back when you got here that I was doing it to you, but it's a lot harder to be fair with your heart than your head."

Movement on the edge of his vision: he turned to look at the ripples in the pool, still unable to face her eyes. "It doesn't make it okay that I hurt your feelings because you were _collateral damage_, but… there's nothing about _you _that would make anyone who isn't a bastard want to hurt you. There's just stuff you can't help, like I can't help being the son of the Ikaris or my contamination ratio. I guess I'm trying to say that you deserved better? Especially from me, since I know what it's like to be hated for things you can't help. Because of _them _and what they did." Rei was the other child/victim of his parents. "I should have done what Misato and everyone wanted… what they expected me to do," thinking better of him than he was, "and helped you. Misery loves company, and you were going through what I did, I knew just how unfair it was. That's why you're Rei Fuyutsuki instead of Rei Akagi: they thought you'd be my little sister and I'd protect you, like my big sister protected me. But I saw her face in your face and I ran away. I didn't… I really let everyone down. Especially you. I abandoned you when I _knew _how much that was going to hurt you, and what kind of stuff you were going to have to deal with."

"I will accept your apology," she said, and then with Ritsuko's bluntness said, "but I do not want to accept it. I would rather you continue to make it up to me by acting as a… relation should."

"…Brother," he said, or admitted. "That was the idea," and the genetic relationship was that she was his half-sister.

"And you also intend to be my brother-in-law." Rei had an excellent poker face, but that very blankness indicated that she was armoring herself, that she held him in suspicion.

"I'm not doing this because Tabris asked me to apologize to you. He hasn't even asked that, he just looks worried about you, and wishes he could ask more about how you're doing without it edging over into trying to get information about NERV operations out of me." Since Rei was Lilith's vessel _and _a pilot. With Unit 02 tied down babysitting Armisael, she was the only pilot who could be sent on offensive operations. Sending Unit 02 ran the risk of Armisael tagging along and deciding to side with Tabris.

"Ah, so that's it," Rei said, smiling. "You feel like Tabris."

Shinji was startled, but managed not to jump out of his skin. "What… He is _not _controlling me!" How could she even imply something like that? "He hasn't encroached on me, either," except as necessary to read Shinji's emotional state… but Shinji allowing even that much? If Rei thought Tabris had done something to him, and told Shinji's Dad? If they found out that Tabris had _done something _to him? They'd never forgive Kaworu, or themselves for letting him anywhere near Shinji.

Misato would pull out all the stops, that theory that SEELE was still controlling Kaworu would leak if not be announced, the war would resume and Shinji would never see him again, not unless Kaworu kidnapped him.

Which would mean that Shinji could never see his family again, or they'd try to rescue him, keep him from having to go back to that abomination who had tampered with his body and mind.

What if she wasn't detecting anything physical, though? When the two of them merged were traces left behind, was there something that marked them as, well, soulmates?

That slight pause when that occurred to him: "Yet it seems there is something you're aware of," Rei said, and Shinji wondered if she had actually learned to read body language well enough to read _him_, or the flash of realization showed in his soul.

"Yes," he admitted. "It's what I came to talk to you about. Rei…" No. Damn it. "I don't actually have the right to ask you to keep this a secret." Not from Ritsuko and Professor Fuyutsuki, when she had much and in fact far more reason to trust their judgment, to see them as family than Shinji. "Definitely not legally." Not when it would be breaking the law for Rei not to inform NERV of something like this, when it was related to the risk of Third Impact. "Rei, do you ever feel like you want to be really close to someone else? Not just romantically," he was about to say 'or sexually,' but would Rei even have a normal sex drive to compare it to? Tabris didn't.

"If you are speaking of the seed version of the merge drive, it is there, but it is not a compulsion. Closer to the Lilim sex drive than the programmed impulse that drove the other angels to attack NERV in turn. Ritsuko speculates that this is because Lilith is the equivalent of post-menopausal: if she was to merge," Rei called Lilith 'she' not 'I, "all life on earth would be converted into LCL, but she does not have the power to assemble another biosphere. Armisael does not seem to be fully adult. This was compared to the gap between when a Lilim becomes fertile and when they become legal: attempting to bear children before development is complete is extremely hazardous. Armisael is capable of merging to terraform a world, but if she did it now she believes the resulting world might have a shorter lifespan than ours did." Lilith's world was reaching the end of its lifespan. Humanity was on borrowed time. "She wishes to merge with Kyoko Sohryu, but appears capable of resisting the impulse for now." Rei still wore that blank, unreadable expression. "Her extraction confirmed that placing a seed's soul in a Lilim body does not affect the merge drive." That it was wired into the soul, not the particle wave matter body.

Shinji knew his silence would be taken as a confirmation, no, as a confession. He was glad: it got him out of having to say it. That Tabris had a normal merge drive, that Shinji knew this from experience.

Rei fidgeted, fingering the charm bracelet on her right wrist. "…What is it like?"

Of all the questions… Well, actually, he had expected that people would demand he tell them about it, thinking how terrible it was that an abomination engulfed his mind. He hadn't expected that shy but eager interest, Rei knowing that she was asking something naughty (she wasn't even eight yet!) but still really wanting to know.

Rei was even paler than Tabris: Shinji knew that if she could, she'd be blushing.

He was almost sorry to disappoint her. "For me, it's like holding someone. Your most precious person – people – safe in your arms. For a few moments, I'm someone else, someone who loves me so much, and then I come back to myself and I _know_ that I'm loved, and I'm happy because I know that Kaworu has the same feeling. That he doesn't have to doubt that I love him. That he's happy, because of me. Kaworu doesn't experience it the way I do, though. For me the part that's best about the merging is..." Shinji didn't want to mention that they usually merged after the sex part. "It's like cuddling afterwards, and falling asleep together. You're like Kaworu, though, so you would probably experience it more like he does than like I do. For him, it's the culmination. It's all the stuff that comes before that's like cuddling, just really good cuddling, the way merging and what happens afterwards is for me." So no, Shinji couldn't actually tell her what sex was like. He could tell her what sex was like for a human, but judging from Kaworu Rei just wasn't going to experience the same thing, and Shinji couldn't describe what Kaworu experienced.

Things that made Shinji's brain go, 'want, yes, need, perfect' made Kaworu go 'oh, that's nice.' A smile and a pleased hum instead of an open mouth as he panted for air, instead of gasps and embarrassing mewls. Merging drowned them both in sensation, but while those sensations were almost white noise to Shinji – he was learning to like them now that he was more familiar with them and wasn't so scared for Kaworu – they were pleasurable sensations for Kaworu.

His love was wired to react differently to different things, and even though Shinji shared the same sensations of merging along with Kaworu, he didn't have the same reactions to those sensations. He could tell Rei what happened, even describe what he saw happen to Kaworu, but he couldn't really tell her what it was like from personal experience when he didn't experience it for himself.

It really gave Kaworu an unfair advantage, and when Kaworu loved watching Shinji's pleasured expression now that Kaworu was no longer so very desperate himself, too desperate to have patience? It was hard for Shinji not to come too fast when Kaworu was, well, doing any number of things, but Kaworu had the patience, the ability to control his body. He loved to take care of Shinji, to treat him like something precious as Shinji grasped at the sheets to try to keep himself from flying apart and wondered if he was going to die of a heart attack or if Kaworu would have to encroach on him to save his life and _that _would tear it. If that happened, Shinji would be locked up for his own safety and he'd have to break out and make Kaworu kidnap him or he'd never see Kaworu again.

Barely hearing Kaworu murmuring in other languages over the rush of his blood through his ears, the pounding of his heart and the sounds of Kaworu _moving_. Feeling him _there _and if it was any voice but Kaworu's, Shinji wouldn't have heard a word of it.

Shinji hadn't told Kaworu about talking dirty – not that anything Kaworu said could possibly be dirty – yet because he really thought Kaworu saying things like that would just make him drop dead right then and there. Which was a morbid thought, but it really was as though he could feel his soul yearn to fly out of his body.

Was that what Kaworu felt? Was that what made him lower his AT field, wanting to welcome Shinji with open arms the way Shinji was starting to crave throwing himself into his arms, leaving his body and life behind and offering everything up to Kaworu?

He was the one who knew more about sex, so he'd thought that this was something he'd be the expert on. That he could teach Kaworu pleasure, be the one to give it to him, but Kaworu was so very quick to learn things. Always someone who worked hard, especially for Shinji's sake. When Shinji couldn't overwhelm Kaworu and it was so easy for Kaworu to overwhelm him even with amateur touches, when Shinji craved those touches so much he would lay down his life for them? Sell his very soul into the heretic angel's keeping for no price but the asking? Shinji yearned to give Kaworu whatever he wanted, and he really was a traitor, wasn't he. For love. Just like the monster that wasn't his father.

No piano was necessary: if Shinji's body was the altar, then his soul was the sacrifice offered up to Kaworu in hopes his god would find it worthy and Shinji really had listened to way too many old, romantic songs even if that was Kaworu's genre, not Shinji's. Or no, wait, the religious imagery came from studying the Scrolls and SEELE propaganda before that. So it came from what Shinji studied _other _than music and wasn't Kaworu's fault.

No one to blame for this sap but himself… And SEELE! He could blame the evil death cult!

Phew, thank goodness.

"So you have merged with him," Rei said now. "And that is why you feel like him."

Shinji's trained response was to deny everything or come up with some bullshit explanation, anything other than the truth, but he basically had admitted it. Acting like it was something shameful (even though it was: Shinji's brain contained a decent percentage of NERV's secrets) wasn't fair to Rei, and he needed to stop being a jerk to her. So, "Yes, probably? I didn't know I felt like him." This should worry him, but if anything he kind of liked it. "Do you know if Kaworu feels anything like me?" he wondered. Because if there was a 'Property of Shinji Fuyutsuki' sign on Kaworu's aura, that would be a very good thing.

"I don't know. I can try to sense what I can the next time I am permitted to meet with him." Still, what concerned Rei was, "Are you truly separate?"

"Yes," Shinji said, glad he could confirm that. "The consciousness that forms when the two of us are one is very worried about both of us, since it's born from our love for each other. If we didn't separate afterwards… I don't want that, and Kaworu wouldn't want to do that to me." To make Shinji an abomination, when that still made him think of his birth parents and his plans. When it would be a betrayal of Shinji's true family. "It only knows what we know, though, and Kaworu doesn't know everything about how his powers work. Just the tactical data from the other angels and what he's figured out on his own. How merging works, especially when it's a white seed and a black angel… Adam's children were old, but they didn't spend a lot of time awake." They both knew Armisael was mentally young. "If they knew anything about it, they didn't pass it on to him. So we can't be certain."

And Kaworu had no warning from the other angels that he couldn't grant humanity instrumentality. Not until he found the truth of that lie in Keel's mind.

"Yet you are still doing this enough that it has marked you."

A danger. Compromised judgment. "I love him," Shinji admitted. "It's something that I can do to help him: it's something that he needs, otherwise the call to merge… well, in his case it would be more returning the soul to Adam's body," at which point Adam would either merge or just blow up this accursed planet and get the hell away from the place where she was violated. "Either way, the peace process… SEELE wanted Refuge to be motivated to avenge his death at our hands, since that was part of their scenario. He, he asked me to kill him if it came to that, but we all know that there would be all-out war as soon as he died. Everyone's known that for years. If I can protect him, protect _everyone… _Even if there's a risk of my mind and soul getting corrupted or even taken over, the same is true of Eva piloting."

Rei had her Grandmother. Asuka had her mother, and Touji would have had his. Shinji had a megalomaniac who gave birth to him and named him 'True God' as part of her plan to steal that godhood away, to gain the power of Adam _and _Lilith _and _all the accumulated knowledge of the humanity that would be murdered by the process of her ascension.

"Having my mind connected to her, being inside the body she made herself by hacking off half of Lilith's… Yes, Kaworu-Tabris is a risk, but it doesn't really feel like one. Not compared to _her_." Not compared to what the world had assumed he would do, no, demanded of him. As though it was okay. "We both-Well, I don't know if you were told that there's a lot of stuff I wasn't told, just in case she could dig through my mind and find out about what my father and the others were planning to do to stop her." Rei wasn't the only one who wasn't told everything, for her and everyone else's safety. "Merging means that I would know if Kaworu was just using me, or intended to use me against NERV," in any way. "He doesn't pry when we're merged because the merged person is both of us, so my wish that he won't pry becomes part of that person." Kaworu's wish not to use Shinji or make him feel that he was betraying anyone was a part of it too. "We both remember being that person, but we're not deliberately influencing each other, and it's not deliberately influencing us. Because we love Kaworu and Shinji, so it loves us. If we stopped being those exact people, then its loved ones would be lost too."

"Are you certain that yours are the only minds present there?" In the embryonic god, in the consciousness that would engulf and recreate the world if the flesh of one of the seeds was present?

So they'd discussed that possibility with Rei? Well, Shinji supposed they could trust her to keep it confidential, and Rei probably was Ritsuko's sounding board when she theorized about what the Seeds might and might not be capable of. It wasn't as though Rei remembered Lilith, but any scrap of information she might be able to give would be valuable and she was Ritsuko's apprentice, just like Shinji was Kaji's. Then there was Grandma Naoko.

He shouldn't feel excluded: he _knew _Need to Know, and this was the right decision to make.

"He didn't merge with them, Rei. He ate them. Well, tried to absorb them like what would happen if he triggered Third Impact. He used them to test that they really had been lying when he said that he could grant the Lilim complementation and instrumentality. They were lying, so it killed them." Shinji frowned. He knew that it broke Kaworu's heart, but he couldn't help but be grateful. "If Kaworu_ had_ managed to find some way to absorb them properly, without destroying their souls, then he would have proceeded with… Well, not SEELE's real scenario, but their public scenario." The one Kaworu believed in. The one Kaworu _promised _to his people. "That's why he absorbed all of them: they were test subjects. He definitely wasn't obeying any kind of secret orders." As though Refuge could free itself from the stigma of being founded by SEELE that easily. "They never had any interest in ruling from the shadows: they only did that to the UN and Refuge so they could use them as tools to gain godhood. What's mere temporal power compared to that?" Who cared about a single dying world when they could have the universe, or universes perfectly tailored to them and their wishes?

"There is no way their souls can be restored?" So they could still partake of instrumentality when, or if it arrived?

"He doesn't think so. Rei… that was the first time he deliberately killed anyone." Would Rei understand this, when she'd been kept so much more confined than Shinji? Confined, and thus safer? NERV's security detail certainly had shot people who intended Rei's death, but they'd never gotten far enough that Rei had to watch. Forget having to assist.

Or was she used to the idea, when she was a pilot and her job was to kill abominations? Abominations like herself? And Armisael. Beings that might be a little further away from human than she was, but if everyone wanted them dead then what about her? They weren't just like her, but…

Armisael was, and Armisael would have died along with Rei. Rei would have killed herself to kill the one that was like her, and what did she think about that? Shinji wanted to think that it wasn't as bad as finding out that Shinji was supposed to kill Kaworu. Rei and Armisael weren't in love. But Rei would have _died_, and Shinji doubted that people outside of the family would have cared all that much. Not when Tabris was next, not when the real battle they were waiting for was about to start. Rei would have gone almost unmourned, just like no one really cared about the deaths of the other abominations, and how must that make her feel?

"The members of SEELE weren't innocent people, but they made sure to raise Kaworu to think they did it for the best. If you believe all of that about how we have no chance to survive, then…" Then instrumentality started to look like the best option, a way for humanity to survive instead of being killed by Adam with a bang or starving to death with a whimper. "They're dead, Rei. If they weren't, none of us would be here now. Third Impact would have happened already." Just like if they'd told Kaworu the truth from the beginning.

Just thinking about Kaworu offering himself to Shinji and Unit 01, a sacrifice for humanity's ascension?

Kaworu was willing to give his life, but the revelation that SEELE lied, told him to pursue a course of action that would have killed everyone? If they would do something so evil, so dangerous to everyone for the sake of their goals, what else were they lying about? What else was _wrong_?

"Tabris would have attempted to reach Lilith. Even if he was killed, he would have destroyed the Evas other than Unit 01 to make way for SEELE's scenario," Rei knew.

"You don't hate him do you?" Shinji hoped not. Kaworu would be devastated. "As an enemy of life on this world?" Lilith's world, but wasn't Kaworu Lilith's grandchild as well as Adam's spawn?

Rei shook her head. "He is kind, as Mother said."

Shinji wondered about that: had Ritsuko tried to avoid calling Tabris evil in front of Rei, so her daughter didn't worry Ritsuko thought the same things about her? But wasn't it safer if Rei didn't have any affection for SEELE's abomination, when she herself was an abomination created by one of SEELE's researchers?

So much he didn't know about his own family, about this other person just like him. His father-his real father's stories of Yui, painting her as something other than a monster, or at least trying to do that, for Shinji's sake, until Shinji managed to make him stop. He appreciated that his father tried, but reminding him of why he was hated reminded him that he was hated.

"That's good," he said, pushing his hair back and noting again that he needed to not fall into the habit of doing that when he was nervous: it was bad to have a tell like that. "Well, I guess you didn't really need me to give you a talk if you heard it from Ritsuko. About how an-abominations do it too." _That _was a slip: angels was what _SEELE _called them, and Kaworu was the only who deserved to be called an angel.

"I do want to…" She cut herself off, instead asking, "Is it safe?"

"As long as we stay away from the Evas," flesh of Adam or Lilith, "it should be."

Rei didn't look convinced, or was it that she wanted to be convinced so much that she knew better than to trust her judgment, knew that her rational mind had to be suspicious or her emotions and drives would rule her unopposed, might make her do something that would harm her family?

That would make all the people who said she was a monster that might destroy humanity _right_?

"It doesn't bother you?" was what she finally asked. "You aren't frightened when he takes your soul?"

"It's not quite like that," Shinji said, closing his eyes to try to think of how to describe it. Imagining how he felt himself open, because Kaworu was there and so perfect Shinji couldn't keep his soul and his body from offering themselves and when had Rei closed the distance between them and why had she put her hands on his face and oh _shit_.

Shinji suddenly knew what it was like to be a male praying mantis. The desire was there, the instinctive attraction that wanted to do this even though it would be _certain death_, but what passed for his rational mind was screaming at him, wanting to know what the hell was he thinking, didn't he know that he was going to _die?_

Rei didn't bite his head off. Otherwise it was kind of like that.

Looking at the pile of clothes on the floor, the LCL spattered on the walls (Maintenance & Decontamination was going to throw a _fit_), that-which-was-them hid near-deadly panic behind a blank mask, the poker face Rei wore when she didn't know how to express what she was feeling and Shinji's reflexive need to not show weakness.

She'd killed him! She was an abomination and she'd killed her brother and everyone would know that and Tabris would be furious and what if she'd started a war!

He'd cheated on Kaworu! Oh, and he was dead, but he'd cheated on Kaworu! If traces of someone's soul lingered, like perfume on a cheating husband's clothes? Kaworu didn't have anyone else who loved him, and Shinji had _cheated _on him? What was he going to think, that Shinji was like that bastard who fathered him, treating Kaworu like Grandma Naoko?

Both of them were Eva pilots, far too professional to run around like chickens with their heads – head, singular - cut off. Otherwise?

Shouldn't it be over by now? Normally Shinji went back into his body but his body was _gone_, turned into water of the Dead Sea and what were they going to do?!

They wanted Ritsuko/Kozo.

Alright, they needed to hide that this had happened. Shinji-component had been trained for coming up with things, right? They needed to hide that Shinji was dead somehow, clean up the LCL that had spattered all over the walls and find some way to convince Misato and everyone that Shinji had left with Tabris despite not appearing on the cameras leaving NERV (Rei would have to figure out how to hack the cameras – Ritsuko hadn't taught her, really? – she was better off not knowing so there was some hope footage showing her innocence could be trusted) and make Tabris think Shinji was staying here, and no, too sitcom.

Zany schemes might appeal to Rei-component, since she was eight and wished she was capable of coming up with plots that weren't easily shut down by the experienced adults around her, but Shinji-component was glumly certain that everything would fail and Tabris would think that Shinji had willingly cheated on him, and what would he think, that Rei had stolen her brother's soulmate that was her other brother and damn it all, this was sitcom stuff, wasn't it? Lame daytime television that Rei was made to watch since overly acted expressions were easy for her to learn to identify.

Also, Rei-component had suspected and was now certain because of Shinji-component's ability to read people, because Ritsuko liked some of them herself.

"_I thought this was supposed to be something _nice_," _they thought, sadly disappointed. No, despairing. "_Is it my fault: no, I shouldn't have thought it sounded good, not when it was something that could destroy the world?_

Thinking back, wanting to know, sensations downloaded from Shinji's brain made _sense _to Rei's brain and body, and the memory made Rei's body tighten and _yearn_, but if it was supposed to be such a good thing then why had this gone horribly wrong and the part of Rei that Seed of Wisdom or no Seed of Wisdom was eight and overwhelmed whimpered inside her/their head that she hadn't _meant _to do it, and Shinji-component's memory that he hadn't been able to stop himself the first time either, with Kaworu's soul there for the touching, for the taking, didn't make her forgive herself any more than Shinji had forgiven himself for taking that risk with precious Kaworu.

* * *

"Mother…"

Ritsuko half-turned around, trying to keep her body between Rei and the screen even after reflexively hitting the button to hide everything she was working on. "What's wrong, kitten?" she asked, using an old pet name and trying to sound comforting. Because something was clearly wrong with her daughter.

Rei's eyes didn't dart around the room when she was upset. When she tensed, restraining herself, it was to keep herself from jumping into Ritsuko's arms instead of turning and running from the door.

When Rei wanted to hide, she curled in on herself a little. It was Shinji that glanced at potential cover, whose eyes looked around for exits when he felt threatened. "Did you talk to Shinji?" They had a reason for asking him here today, but in Ritsuko's eyes this was the real reason.

That was when Rei bit her lip instead of crying out, when she tried to hide herself against Ritsuko, clinging to her not just like a child clung to their mother but because she was afraid that this time, Ritsuko would try to push her away. Would reject the abomination.

What scared her like this?


	35. Sleeping Beauty and the

_I am very amused by what some kind soul translated from the twitter account of Shinji's voice actress. Apparently she doesn't just envision Shinji as attracted to Kaworu, she thinks a certain scene should have had Shinji doing the spearing, instead of the one being speared. I'd rather have something mutual than one person always being on top, but it's still interesting to think of the character dynamics and why she thinks this would be the case. I like that Q had a good job of them being equal, but in the end it was really Shinji taking charge and ignoring Kaworu's pleas that ruined everything. _

* * *

"Oh," Kaworu breathed as he appeared in Shinji's music room.

Shinji had gotten his dad to let him designate a spot where Kaworu _could _appear because that was better than Tabris popping up just _anywhere _inside the house, although at least Kaworu could only go to places he'd been to and appearing inside solid matter wouldn't work. The former Eva graveyard and path Kaworu took to reach it during Armisael's attack were filled up with Bakelite almost as soon as the fighting stopped, thanks to Misato's quick thinking.

Even though the part of them that was Shinji had wanted Kaworu _now _almost as much as he wanted Kaworu to never see him/them like this, never know that Shinji had betrayed him, he hadn't let his Dad make the call until Shinji was here. He knew Kaworu would want to come as soon as he found out Shinji needed him, and might be worried enough to fly to find him in transit between NERV and the manor. An abomination flying over Tokyo-3 and using his AT field would cause a panic.

"We're _sorry_," they said, even knowing that was utterly inadequate.

But he smiled for them (_so kind, his Kaworu/her brother_) and touched her (physically, at least – Rei wasn't quite a 'she' any more than Kaworu was quite a 'he') cheek and said, "I know that you would never betray anyone, Shinji. As for you, sister… How could you resist such a bright, shimmering soul? Frail, but all Lilim souls are frail. They all shatter so easily, but only some of them are the stronger for it. From pain, compassion; from adversity, the knowledge that adversity can be overcome; from living in fear, the courage to live in defiance of it. When it was known millennia before my birth that I would be helpless to do aught but fall in love with him even as he wrought my death, how could I condemn another for playing the moth to his flame?"

They blushed helplessly. Rei wasn't used to language like that at _all_, and even the part of them that was Shinji thought that Kaworu was being especially poetic today. Had they managed to interrupt him while he was composing?

"I am simply glad that neither of you has been consumed," and yet there was sadness now, mourning in the curve of that smile. "So that is the mechanism, the power you possess and I do not, to gather up the souls of the Lilim. Perhaps the theory that a Third Impact controlled by Lilith would restore her power so that she could take all of the Lilim to find another planet where you might be reborn was true, then… Lilith's soul seems far too weak to terraform a world all by itself, so I thought they were right, and you were aged and exhausted, but she was not all alone when she crafted this world, was she? No, she had the souls of billions of Lilim with her, adding their strength to her own. Perhaps that is why Armisael seems to glow so much brighter than you do: it is not that your power is exhausted while hers is not, it may simply be that she still holds billions of souls just as you hold Shinji now."

It was the part of them that was Shinji which recognized Kaworu's sadness as envy. Envy that Rei could hold such fragile souls within her without breaking them. Maybe Adam's soul was just too strong, maybe Lilim souls were too fragile, just like Lilith's children would snap like twigs in the hands of Adam's children?

They couldn't help shifting a half-step closer to him, wanting to comfort him. Their brother/lover, the one who was like them. In her nature, in his pain. Part of them wanted to kiss him, but it was the same part of them that knew that you just didn't kiss family members the way he wanted to kiss Kaworu, and they were also Rei now. So they had to settle for kissing his cheek. Kaworu's skin was so soft, and Rei-part's memories tossed up information on how much Lilim had to pay for skin a fraction as perfect as that she and her brother shared.

Perfect, Kaworu was perfect, they thought, worship mingled with feelings of inadequacy. How could they be worthy of this, how could she ever be as beloved as her brother was?

Kaworu wrapped his arms around them, just holding them, and hopefully it was only Rei that thought he was holding them like a mother. Like he would shelter and protect them until they grew strong. Until they were strong again?

"I can feel Shinji's soul intact within you," he said for Rei's ears. "The data of his body should be encoded in that soul. Lilim bodies prioritize physical DNA over that data, but the mechanism that lets angels of the white seed control their forms is still there in Lilim. We are not so different, any of us." Such small genetic differences. "Perhaps I should bring another of your spare bodies, and try to place Shinji into that for now." To get him out of Rei, to let him get his own personality back. "Yet if I did that, his original body's data would be overwritten by the data of that body, just like this soul no longer possesses the data for Adam's original body."

"We have Shinji's cells: It should be possible to create a replacement body for him," Ritsuko said, the first of the audience to speak up. "Even with his resilience," and how that would let them accelerate aging by methods that would make any purely human, uncontaminated body drop dead the first day out of a tube, "it would take at least two years to get one to his current age."

"I have never crafted a body myself, but the knowledge of the elder abominations lives on within me…" The tactical data from Arael on down. "And I do have experience with adjusting the age of cells, and growing new ones." Up to and including multiple limbs.

Professor Fuyutsuki adjusted his cuff insignia in lieu of saying the obvious, 'You're suggesting making my son a new body yourself?'

"It isn't very hard to turn LCL into biomass. What's difficult is changing it on a large enough scale to make a difference, and without exhausting myself dangerously." Kaworu looked around: no, no one would want to bring LCL here, not and risk ruining the manor's gardens and the building's wood. "I could fetch some… or one of my sister's clones might save me several steps." Altering the body and its DNA instead of building everything from scratch. "Excuse me," he said, and squeezed their body a little. "I will be back soon."

Ritsuko's hand was on their shoulder almost as soon as Kaworu was gone. Seeing her little girl in the arms of any boy, much less an abomination worried the mother in her. "How are you," a slight pause before, "two holding up?"

"We're one right now: that's the problem." They knew that Rei would say this calmly and Shinji with slight sarcasm: together they just ended up sounding a little cranky. "How often Shinji thinks of Tabris would seem very strange if you hadn't told Rei how often Lilim males think of sex. She didn't really think that could possibly be right: Shinji thinks that exaggerating how much Lilim males want and value sex sounds a like a good strategy, actually, to make it seem like they need it or just can't help being ruled by instinct. He feared that he was becoming like his biological father, obsessed with the object of his affections, because he lacked a clear idea of what normal was. There was Kaji, but he also assumed that Kaji was exaggerating, for effect and because it was part of the role. The role of Kaji, of pretending confidence, not that of a SEELE agent."

Ritsuko stared at her for a moment and patted her on the head, because Rei analyzing things was cute, but Ritsuko couldn't comment because she'd never understood boys and hadn't really wanted to do so.

Tabris flew out of the darkness when it appeared again instead of trying to make it seem more natural. They soon saw why: he was pulling a clone's capsule behind him, and he made the false shadow vanish only once the capsule was entirely out of Dirac Space. They saw how he tried to put the capsule down perfectly, without scratching the floor of Shinji's music room. Landing on it instead of the floor, he sat at the head of it and peered at the control keypad.

The capsule made some noises and popped open for him. They were aware that abominations could control technology, of course, and that using his powers that way was an everyday thing for Tabris in Refuge, something the people there were presumably used to instead of something he tried to hide, but it was something else to see him do it in front of them.

Ritsuko remembered her mother's battle with Iruel in the Magi system: when Tabris inherited the elder abomination's knowledge of it and had years of experience with other computer systems, would they really be able to keep him out? Well, they still had some tricks up their sleeves…

Tabris first bent down to touch the LCL: the blood plasma-like liquid rippled at his touch, the red hue fading.

The scent of honey filled the room. Considerate of him to change the LCL so it wouldn't start eating away at Shinji's home if some splashed somewhere, but honey? Was that something biblical? Well, at least it was better than wine, the professor thought, even though he knew his daughter would feel obligated to disagree with him if he said it aloud. Not that she wouldn't have the same opinion of SEELE's messiah aping that of the older variant of the same tradition. Not to mention how could someone who couldn't have alcohol possibly understand what made good wine?

Tabris ignored them, smiling briefly when he was certain he'd changed all of the LCL. Dropping lightly down to the floor, his tongue darted out to lick the honey off his fingertips before he looked at Rei. The onlookers found it more of a boyish gesture than an appealing one (so Tabris was human enough to like sweets?) but Ritsuko was still glad he reached into a pocket for a handkerchief before touching her daughter's hand with fingers he'd licked. Tabris' immune system was powerful enough to fry any pathogen that came in contact with him (its strength was at least part of the reason his allergic reactions were so severe), but it wasn't about germs, it was about anything even vaguely resembling an indirect kiss with _her daughter_.

Now he seemed to notice the rest of them. He looked at them for a moment before saying, "I think that Shinji's soul will come to me if I," the slightest of pauses, "do something, and then I could place him into this body and alter it, but would you please look away?"

Now they were the ones just giving him a _look_: did he really think they were going to do that? When this was Dr. Ritsuko Akagi's daughter and Professor Fuyutsuki's son he was talking about?

"This is something private," he told them with a slight frown, "and the both of you are ang-abominations. Lilim. Not seeds. It might affect you. This isn't something that Shinji would want you to see."

"And yet you're willing to do it in front of my daughter," was Ritsuko's flat response.

"A… procedure," abomination tampering, "on my son, something this drastic? There must be witnesses." Shinji's father was not budging, not when this would have to be reported to at least some of the UN committee, and his word was already the only thing between his son and being locked away like Misato once was.

A flash of hostility there in Tabris' eyes, protective anger or something that could pass for it, and once again the commander of NERV thought to himself that it was a good thing he'd pulled rank and kept Misato away from this, even if she would now be avoiding him outside of work for the next week.

It was Fuyutsuki that he was glaring at, not Ritsuko. "Misato Katsuragi is not here, but you are the Great Traitor. I know the UN's orders: while we are one, I will be vulnerable." That wasn't giving anything away: everyone here knew that was how merging worked. The AT field divided souls, so Tabris would have to lower his to be one with Shinji. The desire to be one with Shinji was the _only _thing that could leave him unprotected, when Adam's memory of violation dwelled somewhere in the soul they shared.

"Kaworu!" Rei scolded, and that was Shinji. "I know they wanted you to think that he was a murderer or something, that he just revealed the truth because he didn't care if millions of Lilim suffered and died for nothing, but that's bullshit!"

"Do you really think he won't take this opportunity to kill me even if he has to go through you?" Kaworu asked, looking at Shinji doubtfully. "Shinji, he has his duty, and I have mine." To his people. There were the cherubim now, but they didn't have Tabris' experience on defense. They were children, and with the council discredited? Beheading Refuge like this was a _dream_. "Shinji, I can't…" And it was clear that his real reason was that he _couldn't let Shinji die_. "For you to see the man you care for strike at you in cold blood, use you as a tool to kill me… That would hurt you."

Rei's mouth opened, and it was probably her more than Shinji that wanted to say that family wouldn't do something like that, because Rei was still a child. Shinji understood duty, and Ritsuko winced to see that. How much of Shinji's darker knowledge of the world would remain behind in Rei, when it was so hard for Ritsuko to give her a bright outlook in the face of the world's hostility? "Father," they said to the Professor. "_Can_ you promise me that you won't attack Kaworu until the end of today? Unless he goes to NERV or actually deserves it."

Shinji wasn't asking him not to attack, which would be wrong in all kinds of ways. He was asking Fuyutsuki if he _could _make that promise, if there was some way for the Commander of NERV to justify not destroying SEELE's abomination while it was vulnerable. Because if Fuyutsuki couldn't make that promise, then Shinji would have to avoid putting his father in a position where he would be forced to act.

Fuyutsuki hated to think of how close he had come to putting aside his duty to get the truth out because of his feelings for one of his former students. If he had remained silent, SEELE and Gendo Ikari would have continued their work unopposed, and the world would almost certainly have ended months ago. Shinji grew up knowing that, grew up believing in his father's honor and decency, knowing those were the reasons that he had a father in the first place. Because Fuyutsuki had chosen what was right, for Shinji and the world, over personal feelings.

Asking his father to compromise his principles 'for me?' If Shinji _ever _did that, his father would have to assume that Shinji was not himself, that he was being controlled. It was one of the list of signs he'd worked out years ago, long before Kaworu came on the scene. When they had to put Shinji into _that _Eva. How to tell that his son was still himself, instead of being influenced or even possessed by Yui Ikari: who knew what was possible when it came to abominations like the Evas?

He could only sigh and touch his hand to his temples. "I can justify making that promise, in my name and NERV's." Excuse it on the grounds of getting Shinji, getting the world's weapon against Tabris, back and functional again. Also keeping Rei functional: he was not looking forward to how people were going to freak out when news that she absorbed someone and turned their body to LCL spread, _especially _if it was something that could happen by accident. In his best judgment, preventing a total war that would consume the world's resources and destroy resources needed in order to fix the world (because if Tabris was killed, what would become of Armisael and Rei, the abomination and the proven soul-eater?) took priority under these circumstances.

The truth he exposed was classified by order of the UN at the time: Fuyutsuki hadn't just put aside his personal feelings but the law as well. Most people overlooked that because they weren't just orders. They preferred to think that SEELE's control over the UN was a temporary aberration instead of the reason the UN had so much power now in the first place. The UN knew that it was Fuyutsuki or Katsuragi as head of NERV or no one: there was no one else the world trusted to fight back the abominations instead of being tempted by their power and the promise of godhood. He still tried to avoid reminding them that he was such a hero because he'd ignored UN regulations for the greater good, not because he _followed _them.

This was Shinji asking this, merged with Rei or not, and he felt his shoulders relax a little as he finally managed to acknowledge that with his heart as well as his head. Shinji was still Shinji: his son wasn't dead despite the loss of his body.

So the next step, if Shinji wasn't himself after this? His father would know exactly who to blame.

Of course, whether legally Shinji could still be considered Shinji after this was another question.

Kyoko Sohryu was legally dead: that was why Asuka was adopted by Ritsuko and Kaji. The insane shell left behind until someone failed to sedate her while her doll was cleaned and she killed herself: that was Kyoko Sohryu. The being in the Eva might have her soul, might have her mind, but it was an Eva. Her body was her body, contained her physical brain. A clone was not the same person as the original.

At least Shinji should still look like Shinji. Hopefully. Perhaps inertia would let him step into the space of the legal identity of Shinji Fuyutsuki, since there was no body left to claim it, just spatters of LCL already cleaned up by decontamination and taken to Ritsuko's lab to see if she could find any signs they came from Shinji or if it was just pure, raw LCL.

If the government wouldn't acknowledge that Shinji was the same Shinji? If he was considered just Tabris' creation now, not the same person who fought to defend this world as an Eva pilot?

The pale creature looked at Rei for Shinji's judgment instead of trying to stare down the professor, to read the man for himself. Shinji nodded and stepped between them and Tabris, Rei's body facing Shinji's lover.

"Shinji," Tabris murmured, and bent his head to touch his forehead to Rei's. There was a brief glow, red instead of the pale grey of his AT field. It disappeared and in that instant both of them took a step back, Rei as though she had been trying to pull away and unexpectedly found herself able to move again. Had her body been trapped in a tug of war between the two souls within her, Shinji drawn towards Tabris and Rei trying to stand still, until Shinji broke free?

Tabris reeled back, catching himself on the rim of the capsule.

"Did it work?" Rei asked when Tabris just stayed there with his eyes closed, breathing a little strangely.

Red eyes opened slowly at the sound of Tabris' sister's voice. "We are one now," he, they said, and some part of them wanted to identify that as the Royal We. Condemn it as a sign of arrogance, but Tabris' body truly was speaking for more than just himself in this moment.

They looked for signs of Shinji's presence in him, but even though there were differences from how Tabris was a moment ago they'd never seen Shinji like this either. Shinji was controlled, not expressive: when he was happy he showed it with a rare, brilliant smile. He had never looked at them through hazed, half-lidded eyes, and no, they didn't find Shinji disturbingly attractive.

This was the union of two abominations, a seed and a so-called 'angel.' There but for the presence of amplifying biological equipment to generate an anti-AT field was Third Impact. The Second Rapture, and the rapture in those eyes, as though this being was suffused with a bright flame, was overfilled with such joy that it might pour out and engulf them. Some instinct within them _wanted _to be engulfed, to be granted a piece of such a perfect love.

Inhumanly perfect. People were individuals, people had needs, and how could you love someone who wasn't a person? Not someone who would stay by your side, but just a part of yourself?

Beautiful, beautiful, Tabris was truly beautiful now and perhaps part of it really was that this was Shinji's soul there. Their little boy who looked out at them through those eyes, transfixed with bliss, and how could they condemn his happiness? How could they let it terrify them, or reject it?

It was when Rei asked, "Are you alright?" that they realized that it wasn't just the bedroom eyes that gave the impression that the abomination was sleepy, that he wasn't shaking slightly with suppressed ecstasy but wobbling a little.

"We-I are not used to existing for very long. The part of our mind that is Shinji is fine, but poor Kaworu is overstimulated." He turned carefully and placed a hand on the capsule. "It's wonderful to know that one of those we love feels such joy, but trying to get anything done like this… but then, they wanted to return to each other. I yearned for each of their arms around me again, yes." Oh, yes. "My existence means that in this moment they do not exist, so I need to break apart so they can be restored, but Shinji needs a new body." A flash of fear there, for the loss of one that was loved. "I hope Kaworu didn't overestimate me, but how could he think poorly of Shinji?" A fond smile that was Shinji: silly Kaworu who thought so much of him, but how could Shinji not love him for it? "Would someone lift me up? Part of me doesn't know how to hover, and the other part of me worries about using our soul when it's like this."

Since no one wanted him to break Shinji's soul, they wanted to help, but in that moment they wanted to touch him far too much for it to possibly be a good idea. What if they turned into LCL the way Shinji had because of Rei? That would be an absolute disaster for the peace process (and Shinji and Kaworu's chances of remaining together). It was Rei that put her hands together and lowered them so the joined person could step into them and get a boost up, enough he could climb over the edge of the capsule into the opening.

He just dropped in, heedless of Tabris' robes or the human body's need to breathe. Humans could breathe in LCL, but honey? It had to be a disaster if something that thick and sticky got into the lungs. They had confirmation from Shinji that Tabris didn't need to breathe, and the clone was already in there, but the clone wasn't moving or breathing. It looked already dead, a fly in amber instead of a living person who might drown in that gold.

As the honey soaked into them, Tabris' robes became dense enough to sink down and cover the nakedness of Rei's clone. He, they, lay on top of that empty shell and they saw his lips meet hers.

If they were fairy-tale people, they might have thought of the kiss that supposedly woke Sleeping Beauty, but both of them were scientists that studied abominations. Both of them thought of Kaworu using that point of contact to send extensions like Armisael's throughout that body, warping and altering it. Changing it into something different.

Oh, this might look pretty and romantic to people who didn't know that they were looking at, but that was Tabris all over. Years of training in how to present, how to stage-manage himself. To play an angel, to make sure Lilim saw that instead of constantly being reminded of the abomination that blew up half the world when he did something that looked disgusting instead of holy.

What would this do to Shinji's contamination ratio? He could be considered an abomination hybrid at this point, just like Rei, when his new body was made from a genetic abomination hybrid by Tabris himself.

As Ritsuko stepped closer to her, Rei found herself hiding against her Mother, because she hadn't _meant _to do this to Shinji.

They could see that hair darken to brown, but everything else was hidden. Tabris didn't move, not anything that they could see, and they were wondering how long exactly this would take when the body under Kaworu shook suddenly.

Pushing Kaworu off him, Shinji struggled to stand up, to get to the surface for _air_. At least honey was more sticky than slippery, but he was still grateful for the hands that reached in to grab him.

He looked cross as he tried to wipe the honey from his face: what he was really thinking was that of _course _Kaworu had forgotten clothes. The manor had servants, yes, but they weren't going to come in when something classified was going on and bring bathrobes without anyone asking them to do it. Having to keep one of his hands somewhere meant he was stuck wiping himself down with only one, and he wasn't looking forward to getting to the bathroom to shower. Honey _everywhere_. At least it was better than LCL everywhere. Cleaning, not decontamination.

Oh great, the stuff was in his _ears_.

"I'm fine," he was telling them, feeling Kaworu settle to the bottom of the tank, his robe pooling around Shinji's legs as Shinji tried to wipe down more of his torso. He was lucky that his hips were under the surface, but he sort of wished that the capsule was even smaller than that, since it wouldn't have been as hard to get to the surface. He couldn't really blame their combined self for forgetting about _oxygen_: it had been the last thing on Shinji's mind too.

After knocking a bit more of the honey out of his ear, he responded to Rei repeating her earlier question. "He's fine, he's just tired."

"He shouldn't get tired," Ritsuko said.

"He gets tired like he gets hungry." His father should remember that, from the uncomfortable dinner. "His brain's a Lilim brain, so it probably does need sleep for all the same reasons our brains need sleep." Dreaming, rewiring itself, learning and growing. "He can survive without it, but his body still wants it. Adam's soul probably does too." When the seeds could happily spend billions of years in dreamless sleep, waiting for the time when the stars would align, they would arrive on a new planet and claim it for themselves. "Shouldn't his body remind him that normal people need oxygen, then?" Shinji wondered, because he was still calming down from that moment of panic. That this wasn't LCL anymore, so no, he couldn't actually breathe it and it would be very, very bad if he tried. "Unless he's used to LCL? Didn't they keep him in something like this at the lab? Or it's just because he bathes so much he got used to being in stuff he couldn't breathe," Shinji muttered that last bit to himself. "I should probably make him wake up." And clean Shinji off, since that would probably just take a second for Tabris. Turn the honey into white rose petals instead or something equally ridiculous, since he'd still be mostly asleep.

Given the difference in density, would that make rose petals overflow from the capsule? Was that better than getting honey all over the floor of his music room?

It was the music room part that decided him, made him nudge Kaworu with his foot. Then nudge him again when Kaworu shifted a little, probably mistaking the 'I want you to wake up' nudge for an 'are you alive' nudge. No: Shinji wanted him to wake up and talk instead of just move a little to verify that Kaworu was okay too and nothing had gone wrong during the merge.

At the second nudge, Kaworu must have opened his eyes before he tried to push himself up and encountered the same trouble with that Shinji had.

Yes, Shinji thought as the 'floof' sound was followed by the silken slide of rose petals falling down more rose petals: they were springy enough that when they'd suddenly found themselves compressed, they'd kind of exploded all over the room. Rose petals. He'd called it.

If he was Ritsuko, he might have dwelled on the determinism of it all, that rose petals was the first thing that popped into both of their heads probably because they'd been sharing heads for a bit awhile ago, but this was kind of like a bathtub and there were only so many things that belonged in bathtubs that weren't soap or oil or something equally slimy or sticky. Rubber duckies would be even more ridiculous. Shinji would be hearing squeaks every time he moved instead of feeling rose petals get crushed, the scent filling the air as Kaworu stood up. "Sorry, dear Shinji," he said, and raised his hand to cover his mouth for a moment even though no yawn escaped.

"That's alright." Kaworu was Kaworu, and since he experienced a lot more when they were merged, it mentally tired him out a lot more. Possibly also because while it was _based on _sex, it wasn't _exactly _sex, and his brain might still be figuring out how to handle it. "It's not like I was in any real danger." Of drowning and dying, not when his family was here and they would have woken Kaworu up in time, before oxygen deprivation damage or anything started.

Kaworu embraced Shinji, and Shinji was very grateful not just for the thought, but because he'd started to think of merging as something that happened as part of sex himself, and he'd been naked in a tub of stuff with Kaworu, and, well, he was fourteen. The adrenaline, too. Having cloth wrapped around him let him hope his family hadn't noticed anything behind his hand before the honey turned to rose petals, which weren't see-through.

It was worse for Kaworu: Shinji had tried to shield him, but had they seen his core? Shinji felt really horrible now: Rei's clinical influence or no, he should have thought about Kaworu's privacy more than what was efficient and would make things easiest for everyone. Merging might be like cuddling afterwards for _Shinji_, but for Kaworu it was a lot more than that, and in front of an audience?

"They must want to examine you," Kaworu said, a little sad that they wouldn't be able to go to Shinji's bedroom, that he couldn't go back to sleep next to Shinji.

Yes, lab, and "Could someone bring me some clothes?" He could put them on under the rose petals. "I could carry you to my bedroom?" he offered.

"I think I will just sleep here, if that's alright with everyone. The capsule won't fit through the door, so I should take it home with me so they don't have to make a hole in your poor music room." Kaworu nuzzled at his cheek apologetically. "I wish I could sleep next to you every night, but I must not take you away from your home and family. From your happiness."

There went Kaworu again, being so _perfect_, and how could Shinji not kiss him, audience or no audience?

Would dragging him down beneath the rose petals work? No: that couldn't possibly be practical and Ritsuko was here. He'd seen her deal with Kaji putting the moves on Misato enough times to know she'd just get one of those huge cups of cold water and pour it on them.

From Kaworu's soft little hum he'd realized how much Shinji wanted his touch, and Shinji couldn't help the shiver of almost gleeful anticipation that went through him. Kaworu's silk-clad hand trailing up Shinji's side…

The professor coughed. "Ritsuko, would you...?"

"On it." One huge cup of ice water, coming up.

"I'll bring you some clothes, son."

Ritsuko tugged Rei out of the room behind her: they might need more cups.

Teenage boys. Worse than tomcats and not as fluffy.


	36. Bloodied Relations

_If you don't mind philosophizing: it doesn't produce a streamlined story, but something I like here is that no character is always right. All of them are doing what they think is best, creating and discarding hypotheses, and they're willing to admit when they're wrong. The strength to face reality is sadly rare, especially when the stakes are so high. _

_A lot of people, when they argue themselves or are argued into doing something with good intentions, who then later are faced with irrefutable evidence that what they did was wrong, was not justified by the circumstances or was absolutely the wrong way to handle those circumstances, cannot admit it to themselves. While they're in denial, they're heroes who did something good. To admit that they were wrong, though? That they hurt their friends, children, world? _

_Just like Instrumentality as a way to solve all humanity's problems is seductive because who doesn't want all their problems solved, thinking of someone as just an enemy is also seductive. Enemy equals kill them equals no more problem. Often the more steps one takes closer to truth, the further one seems from a solution: this is why people like to believe things are simple, because simple problems would be easy to solve. _

_That's Shinji's weakness in 3.0: he's so close to fixing everything that when it's revealed that no, something is wrong, it's not that simple after all, he can't face that fact. He goes into denial, refuses to listen to those who say things aren't that simple and triggers another impact. _

_The equivalent would be Tabris in this fic refusing to face that SEELE was lying to him, insisting that he could fix everything, could bring instrumentality, if only he... tried hard enough, or wanted it enough, or any of the myriad justifications people come up with when the facts refuse to fit what they want to be true._

_There's not really much in this fic that should be considered certainly true (other than that Kaworu Nagisa will always love Shinji Ikari), partially because I think of new ideas as I write it, but also because new truths being revealed and people having to adapt to this (Fuyutsuki's exposure of the truth, Shinji finding out Kaworu was Tabris) is such a big theme. If just letting the characters try to get through life didn't provide me with enough plot twists, I'd have to come up with some._

_Fortunately, there's no danger of the Eva cast and Eva worldbuilding ceasing to be insane and insanely difficult._

* * *

"What we called you to the science department to discuss before everything started happening," Naoko began.

Shinji noticed the 'everything started happening' as opposed to 'my cute little granddaughter swallowed your soul.' Yes, very clear that Naoko didn't want Rei blamed for this.

Ritsuko coughed loudly, as if to say 'speak for yourself.'

"Yes, your past behavior towards my granddaughter and hoping that you'd take the opportunity to take the stick out of your ass was a factor, but that aside, Ritsuko and Kyoko have confessions to make."

Kyoko? It was Ritsuko that Shinji looked at first.

"I managed to get a sample of your boyfriend's DNA the morning after he spent the night in your bedroom for the first time," Ritsuko said, sounding not at all as though she was making a confession. More annoyed that she had to say this at all, rolling her eyes a little.

First time he slept over in Shinji's bedroom specifically, because that was not the first time Kaworu had slept over in the manor: he'd crashed at Shinji's the night before or late night after a performance a few times. Shinji _bet _the manor security now had a policy of checking the DNA of all visitors. They must be kicking themselves.

What he said aloud was, "Yes?" because he'd assumed they had. If Kaworu had indicated that he cared at all Shinji would have burned the sheets, just to start with. It wasn't as if they didn't already know what Adam's DNA looked like, after making the other Evas. So yes, go on, why was she telling him this?

"We're waiting for Misato to get here for the rest of it," Ritsuko said flatly as Shinji looked over at the projection of Dr. Kyoko Sohryu's avatar.

He had to admire Dr. Sohryu's poker face, but then NERV Germany used to be much more under the thumb of SEELE than GEHIRN, which they'd separated themselves from a little more for the sake of plausible deniability. Not showing her true thoughts was a survival skill.

"I don't see why we couldn't tell Misato first, in private, after we let Kyoko tell Asuka."

"Ritsuko." Naoko's 'mom voice,' could still stop her daughter mid-rant. "What Kyoko had to tell Asuka was a slightly separate matter, and _definitely _something Asuka had the right to know first, before we told anyone else anything. Yes, telling Shinji at the same time as Misato would be ridiculous, except we're not telling_ him_, we're using him to inform someone with _exactly _the same right to know Misato has."

"I don't see…" Ritsuko took a deep breath and crossed her arms as the dividing gate opened behind Shinji.

"Someone looks cross." Misato said, surveying the room before she took a step into it. "Is this about why my stepdaughter tried and spectacularly failed to get drunk last night? I _thought _her tolerance was higher than she thought it was," but psychosomatic drunkenness passed so well for real intoxication that it was hard for even Misato to draw the line with any precision.

"We finished the analysis of Tabris' DNA," Naoko told her. "Get in here and close the door so I can turn all the jamming equipment on." Naoko and Kyoko's signals had to pass through cables, but other than that the room should be secure against anything short of Tabris himself.

Misato complied, looking interested. Not in the DNA analysis itself, but because the three of them wouldn't have called her here unless there was something in this which would interest her.

Naoko disappeared from her screen as she focused on merging with the Magi system to verify that the area was secure.

"Misato, I'm going to warn you now that you might not want to know this," Ritsuko said once her mother was (temporarily) out of earshot.

Well, now Misato was really intrigued, so she just gave Ritsuko a doubtful look because seriously, what effect did her best friend _think _those words were going to have on her.

Ritsuko just rolled her eyes and reminded Misato that, "As your friend, I'm obligated to warn you."

"It can't be that bad, or you would have staked out 'I told you so,' rights, or advised me to actually leave," instead of just giving her a warning to take into consideration when Misato made the call. She'd trust Ritsuko's judgment if her friend told her to leave. Probably.

"Ritsuko?" Naoko said, nudging Ritsuko to start instead of chastising her at all.

"Shinji informed me that the Lilim DNA used to create Tabris was taken from the preserved body of the prophet of the Dead Sea Scrolls. We'd already decided that Tabris' DNA was too important to be sent outside for analysis" when the UN had cracked down _hard _on which labs were allowed to even have the computerized DNA of Adam and Lilith, when angels could hack computers and the flesh of a seed was one of the three triggers of Third Impact. When angels could shapeshift, it was theoretically possible – almost certain that they could clone either of the progenitors from a genetic map.

Whatever happened to any human relatives Tabris might have if they were identified and the information leaked wasn't NERV's concern. The half of his DNA that was Adam's leaking was. Possession of Adam or Lilith's DNA outside the NERV facilities was a 'lock you up and throw away the key' level offense, and there weren't many of those left when the effort to hold back the Dead Sea meant that most prisons had been emptied out and their denizens sent to forced labor camps. The people left in actual prisons were there because some government wanted to keep an eye on them and make sure they didn't talk.

"Kyoko was there when I took that call," Ritsuko went on, "and after Armisael was moved into her new body she said that she'd isolate the half of Tabris' DNA that wasn't Adam's and take a look at it for us. She didn't manage to get around to that, or tell me why she'd wanted the project, until yesterday."

"I was on the team that originally extracted and studied the DNA of the prophet. It was my success there," with that contaminated DNA sample, "that made them put me on the EVA project, after Adam was found and samples of her DNA were obtained. The prophet's DNA wasn't the key to immortality some hoped for: no matter how strong the immune system, over the long term the probability of cancer would outweigh the resistance to conventional aging. However, we were able to confirm immunity to all other diseases, and also the presence of a regeneration factor. SEELE loyalists within NERV Germany destroyed all my samples and research when the conspiracy was revealed, but I hoped that I would be able to recreate my earlier work and as much of the original genome as possible. I started by isolating the chromosomes in the sample which did _not _come from Adam, and then I cross-referenced the remainder with my daughter's DNA."

Misato and Shinji were both visibly startled, but only for a moment. Kyoko's daughter was one of the fated children. One of those who would be sent to fight the angels. If she'd had access to a sample like that, _years _before the Katsuragi expedition? Even if she hadn't known her daughter was going to be an Eva pilot, she'd known the end of the world might be coming.

Of course she'd given Asuka an advantage that would let her survive.

"So that's…" Misato murmured. "Her level of contamination was almost as high as Shinji's, and we don't know the half of what those two did to make sure he could pilot."

"Shinji's contamination level is purely environmental, not genetic," Naoko reminded Misato sternly: for god's sake she should know Shinji's issues about what his parents did to him. What was she thinking, bringing that up? "Kyoko exercised proper precautions to reduce her daughter's secondhand exposure to Adam. If it weren't for the original DNA contamination level, well, she still would have gotten enough exposure to serve as a beta-type pilot, but no, not that high a contamination level." Not almost as high as Shinji's.

Misato nodded. "Hers is almost exactly the same as mine." And Misato was almost at Ground Zero of the Rapture, and she'd been there with the expedition in proximity to Adam for awhile before that: no one could have gotten as large an environmental exposure as her. Not naturally. "I had assumed Kyoko made sure that she'd be exposed so she could pilot… No?" she asked when Kyoko shook her head.

"I was not told that my daughter would be required to pilot until she was four," and the theoretical optimal windows during which a child could be exposed to high levels of contamination and successfully adapt was past.

It wasn't just brain development: the immune system also learned and grew along with a child, learning about the different possible threats and adapting to handle them. A normal person's body produced an average of one mutated cell a day that would become cancer if the immune system didn't eliminate it. An average person with a high contamination level had more like ten times that, and 'average high' still wasn't enough to qualify as a beta-type pilot like Hikari.

As for Shinji and Misato… Shinji didn't want to know. He wasn't that afraid for his own sake, since he could ask Kaworu if he'd mind checking every so often, but what about Misato?

"I'm not happy that Asuka was told without me present," Misato told Kyoko. "I thought we discussed this." When Misato became Asuka's stepmother.

Shinji could almost picture the battle aura radiating off both of them, Misato shifting her weight to a more threatening posture and the two of them staring into each other's eyes.

Ritsuko was unimpressed. "She compared Asuka's donor DNA with Tabris' in order to see how much of the original genome could be recreated." Asuka would have gotten half the prophet's DNA and Tabris would have gotten half, but those halves would be random. It wasn't likely that combining them would create a complete sample, but Kyoko would have had more than she started with. Asuka'd gotten an X chromosome while Tabris got a Y, just for starters. "There was no match."

"You're saying that they don't have DNA from the same donor," Shinji said slowly, as Misato slowly disengaged from Kyoko, because _they would discuss this later_. "Since Asuka's egg was made in a lab, Dr. Sohryu would have noticed if the DNA she was looking at wasn't the same DNA she'd been studying for years."

"I did it in secret in the lab where I worked: I picked those chromosomes individually out of the sample myself, to make sure they didn't already have any dangerous mutations." Ones that might harm the baby. Obviously those still-viable cells were cancer cells: Dr. Sohryu would have wanted to make sure she didn't get any of _those _chromosomes.

Shinji calculated the odds that the sample used to create Tabris could have been replaced _accidently, _when SEELE was pretending that Tabris' creation was so vitally important to them, important enough to be worth the deaths of billions. "So someone, probably someone on the Katsuragi Expedition, deliberately switched the sample used to make Tabris. Without any of the old men finding out." Or Tabris would have found out when he searched their stolen memories to find the identity of his father.

Thinking aloud, mind racing ahead of his mouth, Shinji was already thinking of who could have done that, who would have had a motive to do that, and…

No.

Oh no.

Someone within SEELE, working to subvert their plans. Someone in the Katsuragi Expedition, who could have switched it in-transit or after verification, if they didn't do the verifying.

If it was verified at all: SEELE hadn't _wanted _Kaworu to think of himself as any one particular human's child. It made perfect sense that they'd forbidden the researchers who studied him when he was small from looking at his human DNA. Better to think of him as the child of all humanity, a Messiah born of god and man as opposed to _a _man.

What human would have the arrogance to want a god to be their son? It couldn't be one of the original council of SEELE, or Tabris would have seen that when he searched their memories for the truth of his parentage.

Shinji knew the answer to that question.

What human would name their son True God in order to use them as a tool, no, a sacrifice?

They'd intended to sacrifice him along with all of humanity so she could become a god.

But Yui Ikari didn't have a Y chromosome, and SEELE had wanted Adam's child to be male.

That wouldn't have posed any problem: she had a male co-conspirator. Also on the Katsuragi Expedition. One who would do whatever Yui wished. One who left the day before Second Impact, who could have switched the samples at almost the last minute, when there was too little time for any of the few left there who knew the truth to take the time to check them.

Shinji wished he could tell himself that it couldn't be true, wished that he could go into denial, but it could be true. It really could. His parents were still screwing the whole world over from beyond the grave, and he'd had a _special _place in their plans.

Had they known that Tabris was prophesized to love Shinji? Had they switched the samples knowing that?

Had they switched the samples so Kaworu would be Shinji's _half-brother_, one more thing that made it impossible for the two of them to ever be together, knowing that? Was it one more part of their plan to break him, drive him so insane with despair that it would be easy for Yui's mind to push him aside and take over whenever it suited her purposes?

The two of them had never loved him. His father and mother had never loved him. They'd wanted him to know that he would never be loved so he would despair.

Had they done this to poison the only love he would ever receive? If it weren't for his _real _Father taking him in and giving him a home, then Kaworu would have been the only person to ever love Shinji. Had they done this on purpose to taint that? To make something so wonderful feel twisted and wrong, as though he'd slept with Rei?

"It was… it was him," wasn't it, Shinji said even though he didn't want to know, or perhaps because he knew that when those bastards who spawned him were involved, it could always be worse. Right, he had to… To find out what the damage was.

It wasn't like they could have kids anyway, right? So it wasn't really like it mattered, or that was what he tried to tell himself.

But if Kaworu was his_ brother_, and Shinji slept with him…

Family, family was important. Family love wasn't… To sleep with someone, when they were family like that? It just wasn't right.

To make him choose between the love he had for his family, the concept and sacredness of family love itself, and his love for Kaworu? Either way, something precious to him would be destroyed… No, either way he'd have to destroy something precious to him. Either way he would be the one to either say that his love for Kaworu was perverted and wrong, or his bond with his family was now desecrated, because saying that family relationships didn't matter, even if it was to stay with Kaworu?

His family was what kept him as sane as he was, and to be reminded of how it was poisoned, how he let his hormones overrule their love, every time he thought of them? Either that, or from now on every time he looked at Kaworu he would be thinking of why he couldn't touch him, why he couldn't let Kaworu touch. Struggling with his desire for Kaworu and probably losing pretty often and then feeling evil and wretched and like he'd profaned Kaworu, doing something so dirty with him even now that Shinji knew it _was _dirty.

"That bastard… Gendo Ikari did it, didn't he." There wasn't a question in that statement. There was a choked-back sob, Shinji's head bowed. He was dimly aware that his fingernails were digging into his forearms, the way Kaworu's had when Shinji raised the topic of shapeshifting. Of Kaworu becoming something less human, something perverted.

"What… No!" Ritsuko said, startled but Shinji could almost hear her thinking that she wouldn't put it past that perverted bastard, when he'd made damn sure that Rei would look like his wife as well as having her genes.

"I wouldn't put it past him," Ritsuko's mother said with dawning horror, "but no, Shinji… Dr. Katsuragi. He's enough of a match for Misato… it was Dr. Katsuragi that replaced the sample. Not Gendo Ikari. I don't know if he tried, but… Shinji, Tabris is _not _your half-brother." Not _Shinji's_.

And that would be why it was Misato that was warned and not him, because she was the one about to find out something upsetting. If Shinji was about to have his world shattered, about to find out something just as bad as finding out that Kaworu was Tabris in the first place? Something that would make his love a forbidden one? His family would have warned him. His family would have found _some _way to make this hurt less, even a little.

He was trained: he should have reacted to someone grabbing him. He would have reacted if he wasn't used to Misato doing it. If he hadn't tried to get used to that so Misato could grab Shinji while he was asleep without Shinji waking up and lying awake there in Misato's bed until he started thinking about his birth parents and everything and crying, when the whole point was to not cry. To make everyone's nightmares go away.

"They would have," he whispered, too overcome with fear and dawning relief to sob. "They wanted to take him away from me: _he _would have ordered me to kill him for them so that _she _could do it," Unit 01, "getting rid of an obstacle to _her _becoming a god. Just an obstacle, even though he _loves _me." But they'd never cared for their son's happiness, had they? No, their son's happiness would have been just another obstacle. He'd felt her trying to take control in the Eva: his security was what kept her out. What protected him from her. They hadn't wanted him to be happy. They'd wanted him to be desperately unhappy, desperate enough to jump at any offer, even an evil ghost's whispers promising temporary oblivion. How could his heart not have responded to Kaworu's promised love?

Then they would have made Shinji kill him for them. Just another part of their scenario.

His, his precious, perfect… If _anything _took Kaworu away from him, even whatever power decreed fate, even the universe itself…

"Crying like this…" he heard Misato say as she rocked him a little. "I almost wish he was. I mean, I loved Kaji, but I wasn't… I could go on without him. I'm just really damn annoyed I have to do that."

"You're not dependant on him. On some man," Naoko said bluntly. "Good. I'm going to just say it: back in my day, we were brought up to think that you were supposed to devote yourself to the man you loved, or person you loved, that they were supposed to be everything you needed and this was a good thing instead of calculated to end in divorce court. People have needs: we need certain things from other people and people aren't puzzle pieces. We don't match up perfectly, we're going to have needs that the person we love doesn't fulfill. This is why family and friends. In my entire life, I have only seen one person who loved someone else with all his heart, all his mind and all his _soul_. At the time, I thought that was a beautiful thing, beautiful enough I wanted it for myself and didn't stop to think that if people really _were _puzzle pieces, then matching with her meant he and I had to be a horrible match, because I was _not _just like her. I agree with Kozo: Gendo Ikari never loved anyone but Yui. She was so perfect for him that there was no part of him left over to care about or need anything from anyone else. They were soulmates. I used to think that was romantic." Then she actually thought about it.

"I've read about other people having insane crushes, hormones making them think that they just can't live without someone else. Then there are broken people who think they can't find anyone else because they're not good enough or some rot like that. We like to fantasize that we can just find that one special person and it will be easy to have all our emotional needs fulfilled, instead of having to try to make relationships work with several real people with their _own _needs." Naoko's labcoated avatar leaned back against the chalkboard this projection used as a background. "This is something else. This was in the prophecies. Gendo Ikari was something out of dreams we should have realized were nightmares – a genius bad boy who cared about only one person, and now here's his son. Tabris falling for him made slightly more sense when we thought that Kaworu was the prophet's son and it was a setup that way, but if the abominations can sense emotions and Tabris was hungry enough for someone to care about him… Shinji inherited his capacity for love, not the love for the people around him," thank goodness, because Gendo might as well have been a sociopath if your name wasn't Yui Ikari, "but for 'that one special person' from that bastard."

'Like father, like son:' Naoko might have claimed that she was going to be blunt about something horrible with that 'I'm just going to say it,' but she didn't quite have it in her to be cruel enough to Shinji to say he was like his birth father right in front of him without dancing around it a little.

Shinji felt Misato tense around him, and the way she cocked her head: she and Ritsuko knew each other well enough to communicate without words when it came to some things.

"King of the Lilim," was what Ritsuko finally said aloud. "_Something _has to govern souls, if not DNA. Their power level and how 'shiny' or otherwise attractive they are. If someone's soul really does affect their personality, in the same way a brain injury can completely change someone's personality, then that raises some questions. Why would Keel's daughter get surgery to hide her identity and come to Japan to meet one person? If Shinji was specified in the prophecies?" Then what about his father, about his lineage? Had Yui Ikari known that Gendo Rokubungi would be important? They knew that Shinji was born on purpose, to breed herself a pilot, the destined Third Child: was there more to it even than that? "White seeds, black seeds, the elder abominations versus we Lilim: there's so much we don't know about all of this. How the secret reproductive cycle of our own species… No, of our entire biosphere works. Why did Rei do this to Shinji, when nothing like this has ever happened before?"

"He mimicked a mating display in his head without knowing his soul was actually doing it as he thought about it?" Kyoko wondered, since that was the impression she'd gotten.

"For the elder abominations, first come first served." They quested after the seeds, oldest and presumably best at survival first. "For Lilim? There are mobs of us. If Lilith really was supposed to load all our souls up again and go look for another planet, then we need to think about the possible mechanism behind that," Naoko said. "It would be a waste of a good planet if that happened early: we've speculated that the reason so many people were willing to listen to SEELE was that some part of our instincts thinks that's what's supposed to happen. All of us just go crawling back into the womb." No matter how pathetic she found that. "But how is that triggered? If they used the same underlying mechanism, based on human drives, for the 'white tree,' then what about the black?"

"Some unusually powerful souls in among all the others?" Ritsuko wondered. "With the ability to compel Lilith or Armisael to restart the cycle? Possibly to get all the other Lilim loaded up for transport? Hmm, isn't it a little odd that Armisael couldn't call her creations back to her when she was lonely and wanted to do that? Adam is certainly capable of calling its children." That was one reason they needed as much of Adam's flesh as possible in NERV. Shinji could hear her tapping her foot thoughtfully. "I'll have to see if I can calibrate the detection equipment I'm working on to notice smaller differences in power level." Since Lilim had smaller power levels to begin with and NERV's originally was _trying _to ignore everything that wasn't an angel. "I wonder if it correlates to contamination level? Or at least the ability to survive a high contamination level."

"It's self-serving of me to claim that Gendo Ikari had an unfairly high charisma stat," Naoko admitted. "But." What if he had?

Gendo Ikari had served as one of SEELE's recruiters, in the years when Refuge was first being established. It was widely agreed that the man had a presence, was as compelling as he should have been repulsive. Hell, a certain segment of the population claimed he was Satan.

"So damn much we don't know, just so damn much," Misato said with familiar frustration. "Even though we in theory have _all _off SEELE's secrets now, it's still not enough." She drew in a breath. "We can ask Tabris if there's something odd about Shinji. If we make him _worried _about Shinji…" Obvious leverage. "He says that Shinji has a beautiful soul: how beautiful, compared to the average person? Is all of this because Shinji's a looker?"

"You got Armisael to change her mind," Naoko remarked.

"Maybe?" Kyoko replied: so she was the one Naoko was looking at when she said that. "I suppose an Eva does use the AT field: that's why it needs human souls in the first place. It would help if the person involved in the contact experiment was stronger than average. If it was _arranged _that I would be Asuka's mother…" Damn prophecies. "I thought using that sample was my own idea," but who knew? "She should have been the special one, not me."


	37. Fated Children

_I have promised that the story will get back to Misato and what she thinks of all this, but the story mostly follows Shinji and Kaworu, and even though they try to think about others they are boys in love. Next chapter Shinji will be reminded that there's drama and issues in his family that aren't centered around him, heh._

_One can kind of forgive children for thinking that the world revolves around them, because they've experienced so little of the world that the majority they're aware of kind of does. When you actually do matter to the world, the percentage would be even greater. Shinji not _wanting _to be important doesn't change the fact that he is._

* * *

Back in his music room, the capsule was gone and the petals cleaned up. Shinji wondered what the staff thought when Kaworu picked all of them up himself. What Tabris' staff would have thought of him cleaning up something like that.

Just because it was Shinji's music room.

Shinji knew without having to ask that Kaworu was the one to clean it, because it was Shinji's music room and Kaworu knew how important it was to him. Shinji's feelings meant too much to Kaworu, he knew Shinji so well because he _cared_, and even though Shinji really did love him so much it hurt sometimes, he couldn't seriously believe that there was anything unnatural about loving Kaworu that much.

But why would Kaworu love someone like him this much?

"A feedback loop," he said aloud, touching his music stand and looking at the chair that might as well have a sign saying 'Kaworu's Chair' on it.

"He loves you, that makes you love him, he sees that love and loves you more for it, you love him…"

"I know what a feedback loop is," Misato told Ritsuko crossly, checking her watch. Analog. Just like Shinji, Misato Katsuragi was not allowed internet access for her own safety, which was probably a very, very good thing for a lot of _other _people's safety. Shinji didn't have to take Kaji's word about the amount of porn of her online anymore: Kensuke had confirmed that there was lots of it even though Shinji _hadn't wanted to know_.

"Misato Katsuragi," Tabris said as he appeared. Right at the agreed time, according to Shinji's own watch. He looked more than a little surprised: he must have figured out from the fact that she wasn't there when he placed Shinji into his new body that she was being ordered to stay away from him for now. Otherwise, she would have been there for Shinji's sake.

"You've done DNA analysis for Refuge's hospitals," Ritsuko said. "Take a look at this."

Tabris took the vial of blood, glancing at Shinji not necessarily for an explanation but wanting to know if this was something to be concerned about? Seeing that it was fine, he removed the glove from his right hand, then opened the vial and touched it with a finger. "What should I be looking for?"

Ritsuko wasn't giving anything away either. "What can you tell me about it?"

"You could just ask me about my abilities," he told her. "The work I do for the hospital is far from secret." SEELE wanted it to be known, wanted people to come to Refuge in exchange for healing. "Unless there's something about this particular sample… It belongs to Misato Katsuragi."

Misato frowned. "How did you figure that out so fast?"

"The contamination level," he told her. "This sample had to come from either you or Asuka Langley Sohryu. Then I checked hair color. I've never scanned your genome before, if that's what you're wondering."

"So much for that," Ritsuko said, sounding a little pleasantly surprised. Tabris had figured that out more with logic than with abomination powers: Misato's contamination level _was _distinctive, and after that he'd only needed to check one gene instead of sequencing the entire thing. "Do you keep a database?"

"Only of identifying markers, like hair and eye color, and specific harmful mutations and genetic diseases that I need to watch out for in patients. If I need access to a sample pool, I use the one in the hospital's computer systems."

Well, that ruled out just telling him to check it against the general population, of Refuge anyway, and have him find out on his own that Misato and him matched. To whatever degree they did have the same chromosomes: at the bare minimum Misato must have gotten the X and Tabris the Y. "Then check it against your own," Ritsuko told him.

"Is this alright?" he asked his arch-nemesis, looking a little confused. "For me to examine your blood."

"Just do it," she told him.

"With the patient's consent," Tabris said to himself, looking a little insulted. "So you think Dr. Katsuragi might have been a descendent of the prophet, and that might be why SEELE forced him to be the one to do… certain things," with Misato as a hostage, "even though most of them would have viewed those tasks as an honor?"

Misato looked on the verge of telling him to shut up and do his freaky things.

"Sixteen out of… These are practically identical. There should have been _some _mutations in the chromosomes over that many generations." Between the prophet's death and Misato's birth. "Well, there's one, but that's still too… Hmm? The DNA itself isn't…" Tabris frowned thoughtfully. "None of the members of SEELE I absorbed knew there was anything unusual about Dr. Katsuragi's birth. The timing doesn't even match up, not given the available technology."

"Dr. Sohryu used the prophet's DNA to make Asuka. We checked Misato's against her. No match," Ritsuko told him.

"So Dr. Katsuragi was not related to the prophet, then." Tabris met Ritsuko's eyes, and Shinji himself was a little interested in what he'd find there, how Ritsuko would react to her enemy's level stare.

He was glad when she proved him right by not backing down or revealing anything in the face of those red eyes. She was brave, although being used to Rei's own eyes probably helped.

Kaworu looked down at the blood thoughtfully. "No genetic analysis was done of me in the lab after my birth: it was forbidden. They originally planned to clone me for the dummy system, but that was the project that Gendo Ikari subverted and used to create Rei instead. Are you suggesting that Dr. Katsuragi impregnated Adam with his own DNA instead of the prophet's? He was not a geneticist: he wouldn't have had the training to recreate the delivery vectors unless he had help, but who would have helped him? He could have used the… natural delivery vectors." Kaworu looked even paler than normal, and Shinji thought Kaworu might be feeling sick. Did he ever get that feeling normally? Or only when it was psychosomatic, like now?

It was one thing to talk about 'inserting Lilim DNA into Adam.' It sounded a lot more horrible when it was raping Kaworu's mother. Who had the same soul as Kaworu. The thought of someone doing things to Kaworu's body, with him pinned there helplessly by some spear made Shinji want to check he was carrying his gun.

'Delivery vectors,' to get DNA from ancient cancer cells into Adam sounded clinical enough to put what was actually happening at a bit of a remove, but someone actually… sperm?

Shinji had to shudder, and if people knew he thought this way it really wouldn't help anyone's assessment of his loyalty to humanity and the UN, but he really could understand Adam trying to blow up the planet after something that… If Shinji woke up to find that someone was raping him while he was unconscious, he'd do his damnedest to kill them, that was all there was to it.

If someone did that to Kaworu… even hell would be too good for them.

"So," Kaworu said, and they knew they'd confirmed that with their silence. "Why?"

"Can you be a little more specific?" Ritsuko said.

"Why?" Kaworu repeated himself. "His daughter's life was threatened to ensure his compliance. He had no way of knowing that SEELE would deliberately cloud the issue of the source of my genes: he knew that I would be kept in a lab, confined there. As far as he knew, his traitorous act should have been discovered within a month after Second Impact. I was subjected to a battery of tests to make sure that I was healthy, including genetic analysis because the Lilim half of my DNA was supposed to come from cancerous cells, not that the scientists working on me knew this. He should have expected that my DNA would be compared to the original sample, when I was SEELE's sacred child. Originally they told him that I was simply meant to be Adam's living seal. The source of my DNA really should not have mattered, except they wanted to be doubly sure that I could regenerate, that I would not die ahead of schedule. He knew that if this body was faulty, Adam's soul would be released early and would seek to destroy this world."

Kaworu closed his eyes, frowning a little. Searching memories that weren't his own. "He knew that Adam's destruction was necessary to save this world. Why would he sabotage her living seal? Just one final act of defiance? Ah. So perhaps the transmitter wasn't damaged by the cold."

"The transmitter?"

"In the capsule he was given for you," Kaworu told Misato. "You would have been found by SEELE, raised in one of the NERV facilities to be the First Child, the first Eva pilot. But the transmitter was broken, and you were picked up by a ship that didn't know the truth. Your words had to be discredited. That was not part of the promise made to Dr. Katsuragi. He was promised that you would be treated like a queen, the way the UN Forces have treated you since you became a pilot. Breaking the transmitter… It's incredible that you didn't die before you were found. But, if he did something like this, and thought that SEELE would discover his treachery and have you killed as soon as they found you, then this was your only chance to survive."

Both of them were watching him closely: they'd also figured out that Kaworu was accessing the memories of the members of SEELE, and unlike Shinji they didn't know that the old council's souls had been destroyed, not just absorbed either in a proper merge or stored as Rei had done to Shinji when she tried to merge with him because Lilith's soul was in that mode.

They had to be wondering if Kaworu was talking to Lorenz Keel right now, all of Misato's enemies in one place. Wearing one face. If Tabris was no longer just a symbol, or even just the shield of all she longed to destroy.

"He was not a very good liar, and Gendo Ikari stayed there so long to keep an eye on him. Because of this, Gendo Ikari would also have been blamed if anything was wrong with me." He wouldn't have turned a blind eye to something like this, not when it affected him. "It must have been an impulsive decision, one made after Gendo Ikari left." Or someone would have noticed the change in the man, the new resolution. That he'd dredged up some bit of insane courage. Or been struck by madness, some temporary insanity that led him to risk the world and his daughter.

Tabris finally opened his eyes and carefully re-sealed the vial of blood. "Thank you for informing me." Even if they hadn't really informed him, they'd used this as an opportunity to make him reveal as much information as possible.

"So?" Misato said, leaning against one of the walls and looking away from Tabris.

"Now I am the one wishing you would be more specific… I liked Shinji's theory that since the prophet was my father, he had wished for me to meet Shinji and find some happiness. I used to think that the transmitter breaking was a terrible accident. All of your suffering, so needless. Setting off Second Impact saved the Lilim, and your father's deed was repaid so poorly. We might have met under different circumstances: I was to be the Fifth Child. I would have been one of your students, along with Shinji, although of course I would not have been sent to Tokyo-3 until the end." Training for years alongside Shinji, in the public eye? SEELE would never have exposed him to such risk. To people who thought the Evas really were meant to save the world. To the media, and ideals which opposed theirs.

"For want of a transmitter?" Misato asked bitterly. "That's all it… Then again, they were a cult. I was a child, and traumatized: I would have swallowed whatever bullshit they fed me, or I wouldn't have seen the light of day until I did."

"We might have…" Tabris stopped himself, and Shinji hated that he did. That he knew that reaching out for Misato's friendship, that showing that he still desired it would just anger her. "Are you certain you want me to tell you what I think of this? I'm sure this will upset you, just like speaking poorly of Commander Fuyutsuki," the Great Traitor, "upsets Shinji, but I think less of Dr. Katsuragi now. His moment of insanity accomplished nothing besides putting you in danger. No one noticed anything: it wasn't found out until now, long after I would have been dead in all of the original scenarios. It changed nothing except for condemning you to either suffering or death. I try to think well of Lilim, and I understand that many Lilim think that defying SEELE is a noble thing to do, but… I cannot find any nobility in this."

All he did was cause his daughter, Tabris' half-sister just like Rei was Shinji's, to suffer. All he did was make his children enemies: Shinji knew that was what Tabris was really thinking as he watched Misato, who was still looking away.

"So?" he asked her finally.

"You're right: this changes nothing."

He closed his eyes in defeat, hiding his hands inside folded sleeves after he put the vial down on a small table. Leaving it behind. He didn't sigh, but he might as well have. "If one little thing was all it took for you to be my friend… I have always wished it was that easy, and now I wish it for Shinji's sake as well. You wanted me to respect the power of your will, and I do. I simply wish." That she hadn't set herself and all the power of that will to be Tabris' enemy. "I already knew that to Dr. Katsuragi, the one who made Adam bear me and thus the closest thing to a 'father' I did have among the Lilim, I was simply a seal to contain Adam's power. A deflector shield." To reflect most of it back, away from the planet, when she lashed out in her rage. "You were the child he cared for."

And now Tabris found that no, maybe he hadn't cared for her enough in the end.

A seal, a tool: just like Shinji was a tool to pilot Eva, a part that would let his mother operate her new body. In Gendo's mind, a dummy plug that had the capacity to talk back and the audacity to want his time and attention, emotions that belonged to Yui and Yui alone.

It was Shinji Misato looked at: she knew her little brother would hear his own story in the story of Tabris' creation. That the two of them were alike, despite everything.

He couldn't do much but shrug a little, because what was there to say?

"You were willing to let me comfort you when you came to gather Kaji's remains," Tabris said sadly. "I thought… I should have realized that was just the emotions of the moment and not read too much into it. There is too much history between us to be healed so easily, by a single moment or a single realization. I've seen that in many families. The closer Lilim are, the more they hurt each other, and years of pain, years of habits that cause others pain… I would like to believe that Lilim are capable of living happily together." But SEELE proclaimed it was impossible, that the only hope was complementation.

The complementation Tabris _couldn't give them_.

"I can see the feelings of Lilim, but their thoughts remain a mystery. Tell me what you wish to tell me. Tell me what you are willing to permit. If you wish me to avoid you, I will do that, but if you ask me to stop hoping, I find I cannot do that. Not because of some blood connection," through the man whose honor Misato fought for, through his mother's rapist (even if it was SEELE's plan, he was the one who did the deed, and he'd _chosen _to make it even more personal than it had to be by using his own seed), "but because of how long I have known you."

Shinji cleared his throat, because he thought it was better if everyone thought about this before anything more was said. He wished that Kaworu would stop acting like Tabris around Misato all the time. He could be Kaworu around her before she knew, but now that she did know? He retreated behind that shield, and she had years of wanting to smash through that shield, to punch that calm face in. "The science department was also wondering if there's anything weird about my soul?"

"Weird?" Kaworu smiled. "You're beautiful, Shinji. Like frosted glass, like a prism… Sharp edges, but so delicate and so kind. Broken and pieced back together, and the strength it takes to do that… Your soul is an ordinary Lilim soul, Shinji, just like genetically you are a perfectly ordinary 'human.'" Despite what his parents did to him. "Simply a beautiful one." On both counts. "Contamination ratio doesn't affect the soul, to my knowledge." And who would have examined more souls than Kaworu, when for him it was just another sense?

"Are you sure?" Shinji asked, fidgeting a little. "You were supposed to fall for me long before I was born, so if it was just what I've experienced then how did they know about that?"

"How did they know many things?" Kaworu wondered. "The prophecies were a Holy Mystery even to the core of SEELE. I fell in love with you, Shinji. With your friendship." His pale hair picked up the color of the sunlight as he walked towards Shinji, robes sweeping along the floor behind him. "I love your soul because it is the vessel of your self, just as I love your eyes, your lips, your hands, your body."

"Eyes are the windows of the soul," Shinji knew, and, "Kaworu, it's all so perfect. That doesn't _happen_. My father loved my mother this much, and they were monsters. I, I used not to trust love… and Kaji leaving Misato had nothing to do with that!" he insisted before Kaworu could feel guilty or anything. "Kaji and Misato and Ritsuko were _friends_, too, and I trust friendship, and caring, but now… I want to kiss you and I don't care who's watching! I want to run away with you even though I know how wrong that is, how it will end the world, and…" He shook a little as Kaworu wrapped his arms around him.

"Shinji," his angel said calmly, holding Shinji tight with one arm while his other hand stroked down Shinji's back gently. So very gently. "Remember how I came here, through Tokyo-2 in the rain? Driven to your side? It was biology but it was also love, and because I knew that you would care for me. That you care. I believe in love, Shinji, because I've _seen _it. The old men wanted me to know that it was just a chemical reaction, that Lilim weren't capable of the perfect relationships in their songs and stories. Not without complementation. That when two Lilim met each other and were suddenly struck with mad desire, it was because of their base drives, not because two souls recognized each other. That they couldn't see what I see."

A small laugh as Kaworu tucked his head against Shinji's neck, warm breath making him shiver and want. It terrified Shinji even as it comforted him, because only Kaworu could make him feel like this. Only Kaworu. "Perhaps they wanted me to believe that what I felt for you was impossible among the Lilim, and all the more special and precious for it… But I've walked among the Lilim, Shinji. I've seen their hearts. Read their emotions. And this is normal. We're both still acting like newlyweds because we're both afraid that this bond will be taken from us. So we cling to it, cling to each other desperately. That is our brains and bodies, yes, but it's just like how people are filled with the chemicals of anger when they see injustice. It is something Lilim bodies do to give you the will, give you the strength, to fight for love."

The brown-haired boy felt Kaworu's smile against his skin, and then Kaworu lifted his head a little to slide his cheek against Shinji's.

"You are filled with desperation now because you want to fight for me, Shinji. Because you fear that you will never see me again every time I leave your side. There is nothing sick, nothing unnatural about this. This is the love that conquers, but someday the war will be over. It will no longer be so hard for me to turn my thoughts away from you, and towards my people." Kaworu was affected by this too? Yes, yes he was, Shinji wasn't the only one. Kaworu was like him in this as well.

"You will no longer be struck with how much you need me, because you will know that you will see me again. That other kind of love you crave, the love of comfort and caring, the love born when two people rest next to each other and are content, knowing that they are safe in each other's arms, the love filled with trust and faith instead of desperate, hungry need," Kaworu's voice savored those words, the taste of them on his tongue, and Shinji felt that hunger within himself, "that love we have."

A self-depreciating chuckle from Kaworu, warm breath in Shinji's ear now, as Shinji made a small, startled noise. "You're right: if we did not have it, we would lose this joy. That love is the foundation of all other love. Romantic love, the passionate, burning eros, will wither and die unless it is born of that other kind of love, the love of the warm hearthside. Passion cools, and only if love remains can it be rekindled. You fear that your love for me will burn you to cinders, that my love for you will burn out: be at peace, my beloved. What we have between us: I truly believe that it can endure everything. I don't think there's anything at all strange about falling in love with you. You are worthy of love, Shinji. How could anyone with eyes to see not recognize it? The person that I am: that person could not help falling in love with the person you are. You are… so much of what I love about this world, Shinji. You are…"

He rested his forehead against Shinji's. "You are all my joy. I was in love with you long before I knew I was, and I think the same is true of you. To you, I was music: to me, you are the Lilim in all their imperfect perfection. This love came to us naturally. Neither of us could help it, and perhaps it is a terrifying thing to be helpless in the face of some emotion. Love is a powerful _force_, and we are in its grasp. The Final Messenger will offer himself up to the Third Child, and you will accept my sacrifice. I will offer you my life, my soul and my love and feel nothing but joy that you accept them. Because you are you.

"I could not stop loving you without ceasing to love my people. Without ceasing to love poetry, and song. Without ceasing to value compassion, and the bravery of someone who does not possess an unbreakable shield and yet goes out to fight to protect regardless. It may seem prideful of me to say this, but that the most powerful force in the universe is the only thing that can bring down the most powerful of the angels: if someone did plan this, I am sure they found it fitting. The truer a love, the more powerful it is. If our love was something imperfect, tainted at the core, then would the need within you not drive you to smash it?" His heart driving him to obtain true love?

If this wasn't true, if it was only an illusion of true love, if the world was teasing him? If it turned out that Kaworu was only trying to get close to him in order to betray him? If this perfection was taken away?

Kaworu's hand was in his hair now, cupping the back of his head as Kaworu pulled away just a little, so Shinji could see his smile and the soft light in his eyes. Love there, and a trace of laughter not just at Shinji's doubt but also at Kaworu himself, at how he was overcome by the same emotion as Shinji. Truly conquered, and Kaworu didn't mind at all, not when it was Shinji.

Shinji knew he _should _mind, because this love meant Kaworu was in danger, was Kaworu's vulnerability. He should try to make Kaworu hate him so Kaworu would be safe, really he should, but he couldn't. Any more than he could hurt Kaworu any other way. Any more than he could kill Kaworu?

Except he'd already decided that he would kill Kaworu, if he had to do it. The alternative would be even crueler to him. He couldn't… "Kaworu…" he said, voice breaking, more longing and breath behind the word, and when he was pressed against that warm body again he felt himself surrender, prey going limp in the jaws of a predator, well and truly caught. Something like the way he felt when Kaworu bit at the side of his neck, a moment of fear followed by an overwhelming rush of trust, because this was Kaworu and thus he was safe. His head in the lion's mouth, his body in the reach of an abomination, and he was _safe. _He who always looked for the exits, he who was always preparing to run away, was safe. When it was Kaworu. When Kaworu was there.

"I'm scared," he said, blue eyes closed as he cringed from the confession. "I love you so much I'm scared. What if I'm… I'm like my father?"

"I won't let you, Shinji. I won't let you forget your home, your family: they give you so much happiness. I love you and I want you to be happy. I want you to forget that there is such a thing as loneliness. My wish is to die before you, and to think of you alone and sad, too devastated to even find refuge in music? It breaks my heart. For my own selfishness, I wish to lead you to happiness."

"You, you want to die before me?" Shinji's voice broke again, because that was so cruel, but "Alright." Hadn't Shinji already faced the fact that for Kaworu's own sake, that was better?

"Without you I can't die, and the thought of facing eternity without you? If we cannot be together eternally, then… please, Shinji. Don't leave me alone." Kaworu's voice had changed early and easily, without a lot of fuss other than Kaworu being excited over the prospect of learning to sing all over again with a different range. Most people didn't like the prospect of extra work but Kaworu loved music. Kaworu's voice had been beautiful when he was a boy, but it was beautiful now, just like his lips, and Shinji found himself leaning closer to them, remembering their softness and the heat of Kaworu's mouth. Because he wanted to make Kaworu stop saying such sad things.

"Get thee behind me, temptation," Misato said, looking up at the ceiling because just rolling her eyes wasn't enough.

"Don't you boys know better by now than to tempt fate?" Ritsuko said, sounding a little cross as she tapped her foot on the ground impatiently. "Or to tempt Misato. Gazing into each other's eyes like that… I don't need one of my detectors to know that Shinji was the only thing on your alleged mind, _Tabris_."

Meaning his AT field would be down, the way it had been on that fateful day she hit him with her drink. The day Shinji found out the truth.

Meaning Tabris had left himself vulnerable. In front of Misato Katsuragi, when she still had standing orders to kill him. Ritsuko, too, while Shinji had been given at least tacit permission to not constantly try to kill Tabris in order to keep him friendly and lure him into a false sense of security.

"You guys made out in front of me tons of times," was all Shinji could say, with a pout and a little whine that was mostly theatrical. Mostly. He wanted to kiss Kaworu. They could go to his bedroom, but this was his music room. It was just as much his private space as his bedroom, so why should they be the ones who had to move?

"Kisses, and wine," Kaworu quoted, without a trace of fear or care for the threat to his life, not when Shinji was in his arms, "but what need have I of wine when my love's kisses are intoxication enough? His kisses, the light in his eyes, the fire in his heart: truly, I am drunk on that fire."

Shinji had to laugh a little at that, heart suddenly feeling so very light. That whimsy: that was Kaworu, and he hoped Kaworu never changed. "You and that song…" he said fondly.

"I want to write a song for you someday, because music is the surest way to bridge the gap between people's hearts besides complementation, and I want to share this joy." This overflowing love, the love that could fill the world if only they would let it. "But I don't think I could do you justice in a thousand years." The wonder of being with Shinji. The perfection of this love: only perfection would do it justice.

Blushing, Shinji said in a small voice, "I think you're overestimating me and underestimating how good a songwriter you are, Kaworu. Even if I do make you corny."

Kaworu laughed, and the happiness dancing in those eyes? For a moment they looked black, the eyes of Kaworu Nagisa, who didn't have a care in the world other than for music and for Shinji. For a moment Shinji had managed to take the burden of Tabris away.

Because if Shinji lost music when he lost Kaworu, then hadn't Kaworu lost the ability to just be Kaworu, just be an ordinary Lilim who wasn't burdened with the fate of the world, wasn't weighed down with the knowledge that he was hated?

Yes, Shinji thought. This was what he wanted to do for him. He wanted to protect Kaworu from his burdens, wanted to lighten them. Wanted to make sure that Kaworu could smile sometimes, put aside his cares and just be happy.

His lips were parted a little as he watched Kaworu's face, stunned again by how wonderful he was and how was Shinji supposed to be any help to him at all if Kaworu made it so that Shinji couldn't think?

"Corny, am I?" Kaworu's smile still hadn't dimmed: no, this was a grin. "You're right: they wanted me to be. Part of the act. Something not quite human." His speech patterns had changed now, and neither Misato nor Ritsuko missed the upper-crust Japanese accent tempered by traces of international accents (especially French) that came from living in Tokyo-2, both the nation's capital and one of the UN's major administrative centers because of the proximity to Tokyo-3. "But I like to be lyrical. If I speak slower, and choose my words carefully, I'm less likely to end up sounding like a half-wit. It's also better for making speeches." Especially when most of Refuge's inhabitants weren't native English speakers any more than Shinji was. Speaking slower made things easier on everyone.

"I know," Shinji told him. "It doesn't bother me. Kaworu is Kaworu." He paused. "But," he confessed, "It is good to hear you being Kaworu Nagisa once in awhile. I know that it's a mask you wore so people would accept you, but Tabris feels the same way to me. You're trying so hard, too hard, to be what your people need you to be. Kaworu was someone you became just for music, just for fun, so…"

"You love me and want me to be happy." That soft, sad smile: that was Tabris, or the real Kaworu. Nagisa would have laughed again, or told Shinji he didn't need to worry. Seriously, Shinji was the pilot, he had a lot on his plate while the Nagisa clan was really just idle rich. "Shinji… Will you go out with me, on an ordinary date, just for one day? Let me disguise myself, even though I know it bothers you? But I can't…" A flash of sadness in those eyes.

"You can't go out without it, or everyone will treat you differently," Shinji knew, and squeezed Kaworu's right hand, which had somehow found itself in his. "I hate that you're so… That it makes you feel hated, that you can't just be yourself." But who he was, what he was? The deaths of Second Impact? "If that's what you want Kaworu, then of course I'll go on a date with you." Kaworu's fantasy. Not his. But Shinji loved him and wanted him to be happy. "I'm a pilot, so I'd get mobbed too if I was recognized. You wanted a chance to put make-up on me, right?"

Kaworu smiled again, and chided him, saying "Shinji, that doesn't really count. I wanted to bring out your true beauty, and that won't help us go unnoticed during an afternoon among the cafes somewhere."

"I'll let you put me in formal robes another time too," Shinji promised him. "I'm… probably going to be officially restricted now, though." Instead of just under 'for his own protection' unstated house arrest, bar trips to the embassy and NERV on 'business.'

"…Perhaps I should have tried to teach Rei how to shape you a body," Kaworu said, and that sorrow there? That Shinji was in trouble now because Kaworu was hated, and it was all Kaworu's fault? So, so used to it, that guilt hanging over him? Shinji hated it.

"With my soul in there with her?" Shinji shook his head. "I bet it would have taken long enough for me to be legally dead anyway. I'm _fine_, Kaworu. Worst comes to worst, if I'm not Shinji Ikari, then I'm not sworn to the UN. So they could use that as an excuse to 'exile' me so I can 'go to work on you' full-time." The less nice way of putting that would be the UN demanding that Tabris come pick up its property, the imposter, before they disposed of it themselves.

"It seems… Like they should not even consider that," Kaworu said haltingly, fear in his eyes, "but my sister…" If they'd debated killing Lilith's vessel, their own mother, then what of something they thought was Tabris' creation?

Adam's creation? "I want to take you home with me," Kaworu confessed, almost but not quite pleading with Shinji. "Now. Where you'll be _safe_. But I know… You'd be upset if I implied that your family wouldn't try to protect you, and really, it's the same thing as when you were sucked inside your Eva?" And had to prove he hadn't been replaced by Yui Ikari when he did come out? "I… Shinji… surely they understand that it's like the Evas: they couldn't fight the elders without the Evas, they can't kill me without you, but…"

"We can't trust politicians to do the smart thing," Shinji said, "we've both known too many politicians. But, Kaworu…" Suddenly crushed to Kaworu's chest, he lost his train of thought.

"I don't want to go on without you." Kaworu said. "An _eternity _without you… They know you are precious to me, and leaving you in the hands of someone who was so determined to hurt me, who would use any cruel, underhanded tactic her companions could think up?"

He said that with Misato and one of her companions _right there_.

Saying that he seriously thought there was any chance Misato would _kill her little brother_ just to hurt Tabris?

Just to hurt Adam?

"I _could _grant you immortality," Kaworu said, burying his face in Shinji's lengthening hair. "I could give you the fruit of the tree of life, it would heal you and let you protect yourself," project his AT field to block physical attacks. "I could encroach on you, leave pieces of myself to watch over you, heal you and summon me if you were harmed at all, but then there would be no hope of you not being seen as tainted, and who would trust me if," Kaworu laughed harshly, "if I did something so 'evil' as want to protect the person I love with the powers I possess? Even if it means tainting you in their eyes. Blessing you in the eyes of my people, but…" What did the UN care for what Refuge thought. "Shinji, I _promised _myself I would not ask this of you, but _please_. Let me take you home with me. Let me bring you to my home, let me give you happiness there!"

Shinji wanted to ask what was Tabris thinking, asking that, but he wasn't thinking. This was fear and desperation, for Shinji's sake, and yet Kaworu was still giving him a choice instead of stealing him away.

"I can't lose you, Shinji. Yours is the only soul I have touched without destroying it: if you die I owe it to my people to go on even if it means, even if it means betraying your memory," Kaworu shuddered and it took Shinji a moment to figure out what Kaworu was saying there.

Betraying Shinji's memory by being with someone else? _Merging _with someone else, since otherwise his instincts would begin to wake up again?

But what if Tabris couldn't? What if Shinji's really was the only Lilim soul he wouldn't destroy, because Adam's soul hated the Lilim and maybe Kaworu's love for Shinji was the only thing holding back that hate? What if he couldn't calm that need, and with grief weighing him down too, the need to be with Shinji? The need that drove him through Tokyo-3 in the rain when he was trying to be on good behavior for the UN?

He'd want to believe that he could give his people complementation, the same desire for it to be true that destroyed the souls of SEELE. He'd want to believe that he could see Shinji again, and with Shinji dead there was only one way to see him again. If all the grieving Lilim were united with the souls of their loved ones.

Except Kaworu couldn't do that. With the drive to merge weighing on him, turning his need to see Shinji again to desperate madness? He'd destroy the souls of all the Lilim, he'd destroy _Shinji's _soul, and be left to grieve eternally unless madness descended on him, or the self that was Kaworu ceased to be and all that was left was Adam, who hopefully wouldn't care about a single Lilim, the son of two of the bastards responsible for what was done to her, no matter how much her other self had loved him.

When Shinji thought that Kaworu's love for him was delusional sometimes, that Shinji couldn't deserve it no matter how long they had been friends, then wouldn't Adam feel the same way?

Without Shinji, Tabris really would become the destroyer everyone thought he was when they found out that he existed. If Shinji died, then they would have been _right _about him, and Shinji couldn't let that happen. Couldn't let Kaworu be responsible for billions more deaths, couldn't let him… let Adam's soul within him destroy the soul of every human who ever lived, ever loved on this planet.

The way Kaworu's hands cupped his face like Shinji was such a precious treasure, the slight tremble in his arms, the fear in his eyes even as he hated himself for asking this of Shinji: Kaworu was Shinji's love but Shinji was Kaworu's salvation.

And he thought that _he _was the one who couldn't manage without Kaworu? He'd feared losing this for his own sake, when he should have been worried about Kaworu? Wasn't it selfish of him, to try to have his family and his Kaworu both when Kaworu _needed_ him?

He was just so used to Kaworu being the one who had friends, had happiness and was mysteriously generous enough to share that with Shinji. To drag Shinji out of his house to go among ordinary people, other ordinary people, and play music.

Wasn't he the one who was supposed to learn to be like Kaji, the one who was supposed to understand people? How had he been taken in by Kaworu's smiles, by the ability to project confidence and security that you had to have in order to lead people? Just like Shinji's father, the Commander of NERV, had to seem confident for everyone's sake, even though people believed in Misato too, and Ritsuko… but Tabris was the only person Refuge's people trusted, so he had to bear all that burden of reassuring them, of being what they needed on his own when he'd already failed to be what they needed once.

Without Shinji, how could he focus on them? How could he protect them?

Shinji knew that he shouldn't really care: Refuge's people were traitors and yet they were Kaworu's people and how could Shinji not care when Kaworu did?

He had wanted to believe that Kaworu could be okay without him, had wanted not to worry too much for Kaworu, but yes, he should have worried for Kaworu. Much more than himself. He should have thought about this, as much as he hated the thought of it, hated to think of Kaworu suffering alone, curled up in his bed and yearning.

The way Shinji had lain there in his bed just staring up at the ceiling, not even listening to music, when he had to get in the Eva every day and people were getting hurt in his battles and what if he failed and Kaworu was gone. Kaworu was his enemy and he would have to try to kill Kaworu and… He hadn't just gone numb, he'd wanted to go numb. He'd tried very hard to go numb, because he had to function, had to pilot, even though Asuka was good enough at seeming confident for the sake of morale for the both of them.

"I shouldn't have asked," Kaworu said, voice full of self-recrimination, but his eyes never left Shinji's. Those trembling red eyes were still begging for Shinji to be safe.

"If you're worried, you can remind them that if anything happens to me… We both know what will happen." Shinji didn't want to say it. It wasn't a threat, it was what would happen because of what Kaworu was. It was truth, as much as he hated that people hated and feared Kaworu because of it. "I know you're scared for me and for everyone, Kaworu. I… I should be happy that you need me so much, because it means you can't ever leave me, but it just makes me sad." To see Kaworu like this.

"Don't… You must not die. Please, Shinji. If Lilith wasn't different from me, if she couldn't hold her children without destroying them…" Kaworu shuddered. "Rei was my sister, and I put her in their hands without a second thought, but _you_…"

"Back then, would it really have occurred to you that they might hurt me?" When Kaworu was so little, so innocent.

"I am… afraid," Kaworu confessed shamefully, as though he thought he had no right to be afraid. Not when he had his AT field, and everyone else who went out to fight could get hurt, all except him? "I am terrified for you. I, I want… I want to keep you _safe_, I hated that you were going to pilot, to fight my kin and what if you died because of me, because I had taken your music from you, because you were distracted by thoughts of me? I should have had faith that we would be reunited in complementation, I tried to cling to that faith, but when it was you… I wanted to see you again _now_, and I was angry at myself for my selfish impatience, when so many Lilim had to wait fifteen years to see their loved ones again, and we were separated, you would be left lonely for only a handful of months. If I can't ever see you again, isn't that what I deserve? For failing to give my people complementation, for failing to give them back _their _loved ones? Misato Katsuragi, so many saying I deserved to suffer, and do I in truth? When I was used to deceive, when I am incapable of undoing the crimes this soul committed? Their souls shattered in my grasp one after another, and I…"

A deep, indrawn breath, shaky and imperfect. Not an effort to retain control, but the prelude to a raw sob.

Shinji couldn't see the tears fall, not when Kaworu pulled him tight, not when he had no room to pull back and look at Kaworu. Not when Kaworu was leaning on him, was pressing Shinji's back up against the wall. The way Shinji liked to stand because it was safer that way. Back to the wall was a defensible position, and crushed against Kaworu's chest, with Kaworu's body between him and harm? With that AT field, that impenetrable defense, between him and harm?

He had only one arm free, the other pinned to his side by Kaworu's frantic embrace, and all he could do was raise that hand to try to pet Kaworu's head soothingly. He couldn't speak, not with his mouth devoured like this and he could only hope that Kaworu remembered that Shinji needed air in time, because Kaworu showed no signs of stopping the hungry, desperate kiss even though Shinji was already weak in the knees just from the kiss itself.

A whine came from deep in his throat when Kaworu finally released his mouth, because how could he say no to Kaworu after that? How could he say anything but, 'Yes, please, I love you, more, anything?' His love was so good, so good to him, and it felt wrong to refuse him anything when Kaworu was so generous and asked for so little. Only what he really, truly needed.

But, "If I leave now," he said, in between panting for air. "they'll," air, "they'll say it's proof you did something to me. I don't want… I hate that people think you're a monster, Kaworu. I want to protect you from that." As much as he could. If he could. "I don't want to be a reason… people think less of you." He still stroked Kaworu's hair, such fine, soft silver strands. Was it only static that made them cling to his fingers, or Kaworu's desire for Shinji's touch, his wish to not let Shinji go? "Stay, stay tonight," he said finally. "I want to help you feel a little better." See if merging again, if feeling Shinji, if sleeping by his side would calm this desperation. "But it's not just about my family, it's about you, Kaworu. I don't… I want to protect you too." So staying behind, staying in danger: it was something he wanted to do, if there was any chance it would help Kaworu.

"If you die, Shinji Fuyutsuki, there is nothing that can be done to save this world," Kaworu reminded him. "I am not the only one who must live for the sake of others. Your work is not done."

His stomach clenched, a fist tightening around his heart. That was right. One more abomination. The most dangerous one. The one that already killed billions in the Rapture. If he died, Kaworu might not be able to hold it back any longer. If he died without killing Kaworu first the world would end. There would have been absolutely no point to fighting any of the others, to getting in the Eva in the first place, because it would all end the same way. Nothing he did… nothing anyone ever did would have mattered. Everything, people's lives, music, all of it just erased.

He wasn't ordinary. He'd never been ordinary. Kaworu wasn't his ticket to an ordinary life anymore, he had to put aside that dream. Kaworu's happiness wasn't just Shinji's dream. It was something he needed to do for the sake of the world. He'd known that, and yet for Kaworu to remind him of it, to remind him that he couldn't die now, he couldn't treat his life as just an ordinary person's life, because there were so many other people's lives riding on his own?

"I'm sorry," Kaworu said, and he truly was. "But…"

"No." Shinji took a deep breath. "No. You're right. It's fair this way. I shouldn't think of myself as just your escape. I need to remember that I'm important too." Not just to his family, but in the hard, cold calculations Kaji had tried to teach him, that were the only reason the world would let him be with Kaworu at all.

"I am not the only one who is too kind and self-sacrificing for comfort." Kaworu's smile was loving, but that worry there? Was it spawned by the memory of Kaji showing him footage of Shinji, of seeing that Shinji wasn't taking enough care with his own survival anymore, and because of Kaworu? "Your life matters, Shinji. That is a fact, not simply something I am saying because I think too highly of you."

"Don't gamble with it." How many times had Kaji told him that? How often had his stories of risk-taking been calculated to make Shinji go 'that's _insane_' instead of think of it as something to emulate? That drive in the Geofront, the day the first abomination attacked them: one more bit of training. For Shinji to jump in and take the wheel, to act to keep himself alive when Kaji wasn't doing his damn job.

Because one day, Kaji might not be there anymore? To protect him from assassins or anything else, if his cover was blown? Shinji'd known that Kaji knew that Shinji _needed_ to be able to handle things on his own, because once he was out in the Eva Kaji couldn't help him, even Misato couldn't help him anymore. Rei and Asuka were supposed to be his backup, but they'd failed to get along the way the original trio of Kaji, Misato and Ritsuko had.

He'd thought that he'd watch his own back, and Kaworu's, but now Kaworu longed to protect him and Shinji realized that it wasn't fair to not let him do that. Not just because it would make Kaworu afraid, when Kaworu cared for him, but also because Shinji did need the help, for Kaworu's and everyone's sakes. So, "I'm not alone here," Shinji reminded him. "I have my family, and they're not going to summarily destroy me. In the absolute worst case it's the same thing as the Evas, isn't it?" The Evas and their formerly-human souls, in bodies that meant they could still fight for humanity.

'I'm more worried about Rei than about me,' he would have said next, if he hadn't realized that wouldn't be reassuring. Because it would imply that Shinji wasn't worrying about himself, when he needed to do his job and protect himself. Protect what was precious to Kaworu. "I need to stay here and prove I'm still human for Rei's sake, too," was what he said instead, as he reached behind him to take one of Kaworu's hands and pushed away from the wall a little. "Come with me." To Shinji's bedroom, where he could hold him and let him sleep.

Whoever did Kaworu's scheduling must hate his guts by how, Shinji thought. Unless Kaworu did his own scheduling, the way he used to arrange everything for Shinji?

He really did understand why they wanted his Kaworu running their country, but it still made him jealous. He wanted to hold that pale hand tight in his own and never let go. Wanted to shelter Kaworu within his own arms.


	38. Unquiet Night

_Have some mostly fluff. I've decided on the next plotline (tying up a loose end/establishing the outcome of a certain character's arc) and written chapters leading up to it and resolving the current situations, but I'm going to have to rewatch a couple movies and some episodes to try to get that person's speech pattern down. I have discovered that I just cannot write them. I don't have a clear voice for them and I can't default to 'natural' because both incarnations of that character have a very artificial feel to how they speak, it's just different varieties of artificial and I kind of want to do a synthesis for maximum creepy factor... _

* * *

With Kaworu sleeping next to him, looking so calm and peaceful, maybe it would have been easy for another Shinji to believe that everything was alright. That Kaworu was going to be alright.

Shinji knew how to tell when someone was faking sleep, but he also knew that Kaworu wasn't normal. That he might be up still, kept up by Shinji's worry. Even though Shinji tried to be calm, for Kaworu, thinking of everything that happened that day? It was hard not to vibrate with it. He wanted to move, to go, but no, not yet. He wanted Kaworu to be safe asleep first. If it was his awareness of Shinji that let his AT field go down, then Kaworu would be safe even here, even in the home of his enemy, as soon as he was asleep. Shinji could leave him as soon as he was asleep, and be back before Kaworu knew it.

Provided he really was asleep.

Blue eyes lingered on him, on the curve of his shoulder, pale body naked under Shinji's sheets half because Shinji knew what Tabris wore to bed at home, and he felt too embarrassed to offer Kaworu his worn, raggedy old comfortable pajamas.

The other half of it was that he liked Kaworu naked. Liked the thought that Shinji could just pull back that sheet, and there he would be, laid bare for Shinji's eyes alone.

Perhaps Kaworu would feel that gaze on his skin, feel Shinji's desire, and warm red eyes would look up at him, a smile curving pale lips, glad that Shinji found him beautiful in and of himself, with no artifice, no contrivance to make him that way, the kind he needed for the other Lilim.

Shinji shook his head, frowning at himself. No, he needed to not think things like that, couldn't focus a lustful gaze on Kaworu, because otherwise he really might wake him up. Maybe if he stroked Kaworu's back soothingly that would help him sleep, but if Kaworu really was asleep that might wake him up.

In the end, there really was nothing for it but to go, almost running out of the room, praying to any god that would listen except Kaworu (Shinji didn't want him to hear and wake up) that Kaworu wouldn't detect it, that he could rest peacefully, believing that he was by Shinji's side, until morning.

* * *

Red eyes opened when Shinji left the room, a soft glow fading quickly when he remembered himself. Shinji's regard was a warm, pointed radiance, like having his hair brushed. Little pinpricks, because Shinji was still a Lilim and Lilim hurt those they hold close, but trying to keep Kaworu held carefully at the perfect distance, the palpable desire to give warmth instead of pain.

The hedgehog's dilemma, Lilim huddling together in the cold, trying to share warmth without hurting each other. For without warmth they will freeze, too close and they will be pierced to the core.

Not that he minded the latter, when it was Shinji. But the _care _Shinji took with his AT field… It was what Shinji felt when Kaworu bit at the side of his throat, just lightly. Instinct knowing that this would be deadly danger… If they weren't in love. If Tabris didn't love Shinji too much to ever wish to hurt him, if Shinji didn't love Kaworu enough to care so much for his feelings.

A sharp-clawed caress, tracing over his skin, just lightly: it was gone now. He missed it already.

He wished he could tell Shinji that no, he doesn't feel abandoned. He was almost certain that was what Shinji was so afraid of, what brought a frantic edge to his caresses. His soul trying to prove to Kaworu that he was loved, trying to make sure that he would be content while Shinji was gone. Too warm, too content, to ever leave Shinji, ever go elsewhere in search of warmth.

Tabris did wish that Shinji was there. Resting by Shinji's side… If he could have only one wish granted he could never use that wish so selfishly, not when he had his people, not when they longed for their lost loved ones, those they longed to rest beside, and yet if only he could. If only he was simply Kaworu Nagisa, or even simply Tabris, 'simply' an angel without worshippers, with promises made to none but Shinji.

The promise to bring them happiness.

Shinji was made happy by Kaworu's mere presence, and the knowledge made Kaworu's heart light enough to want to laugh. If only, if only everything else was that simple, but to possess this, to know that yes, such happiness was possible, it could be created?

It made it possible to have faith that someday, it would be possible to share this with the entire world. Surely complementation could be no greater bliss than this, and this could be experienced while alive, as individuals.

Surely he could grant his people heaven, and because it was late and even though he was an angel he still thought with a Lilim brain and that brain truly should have been dreaming, a whimsical thought passed through his mind. An image of granting everyone a Shinji, handing them out like the pills Tabris was given in the lab as a child, to make things better. So they could all feel the way Kaworu felt in that moment. Millions, no billions of Shinjis, and even though he knew it didn't work that way the thought still made his toes curl, because Shinji was such perfection and it seemed that even an angel could be seduced by greed, can share the Lilim desire for _more_. Moderation? What was that, when he felt more and more joy the more Shinji touched him?

He was being silly, he knew, but he imagined that it would make Shinji happy to hear this thought of his, to know that Tabris was light-hearted enough to think of such light, nonsensical things.

No, he knew it simply wouldn't work. Shinji loved him more than anyone else. All those Shinjis would pine for him, and only a double handful could crowd around his throne to touch him and be touched. Perhaps they might even fight among themselves to be close to Kaworu, since Shinji was a Lilim, and that thought made him frown. He didn't want any Shinji to be hurt, to be neglected, feel unloved and have it bring them to cruel desperation.

He might be only three more years from his majority but he was still a child, he knew as he closed his eyes again. Such impractical thoughts… Even if the cloning equipment still existed, it was Shinji's soul, the heart forged by his memories, that made him beautiful. Even if Shinji's presence was teaching Kaworu to appreciate the visible things that drove Lilim desire: those blue eyes, shadowed more often than he liked (just like Shinji eas saddened by the darkness in Kaworu's, when he thought himself a failure), that brown hair like a growing tree, like living soil.

And his hands, yes, perhaps he could understand Shinji's fascination with Kaworu's own gloved hands, looking at Shinji's tanned ones. The calluses, seeming imperfections that were the fruit of Shinji's labor, both in music and in fighting. An artist and a protector: Kaworu could see Shinji's soul in his hands just as clearly as in his eyes now, and his soul was beautiful.

For it to vanish into death, beyond anyone's call save Lilith's: the thought made him shudder. Pull the sheet up higher, to keep in the warmth of Shinji's body. Shift to the side a little, to Shinji's pillow, and smile when he felt a brown hair tickle at his nose.

His nature might have been angelic, but his body was half Lilim. Scent was the sense most closely tied to memory, and he could feel his body calm with this reminder of Shinji's presence.

Perhaps he would kiss and caress him when he returned? No, for now Kaworu wished most to sleep by Shinji's side. In the morning, oh yes, in the morning. The warmth of Shinji's gaze would wake Kaworu, the prickle of Lilim desire to be close and the scent of that physical desire. Well, the renewal of that physical desire: the scent of Shinji's pleasure still lingered in these sheets, and it drew a soft hum from Kaworu, who relished the memory of how he made Shinji feel.

To give Shinji joy, happiness, pleasure, to touch him everywhere and in all possible ways… Shinji could feel Kaworu's light on his own soul only dimly, so Kaworu has had to find other ways to caress him.

It was absolutely no hardship. To touch, to kiss…

He loved Shinji and his half-dreaming mind wondered what would happen if he let it all out, let his soul radiate the full force of that emotion. Would that alone be enough to activate Ritsuko's detectors, even if he did nothing physical with his field?

There he went again, thinking such whimsical, irrational thoughts. Something else he would never do: he didn't want to cause any more trouble than he already had for Shinji's family. His love for Shinji flowed over onto those who have granted his love happiness, and he truly did not believe that he could love Misato Katsuragi any more than he already did. That she was his sister paled next to the knowledge that she was Shinji's, bound by love instead of blood.

If he were more awake, perhaps he would have felt more guilt that he tried to take Shinji from such a loving family, but for now the room was dim, barely lit, a silvery hue that would have told Tabris instantly that he was glowing, even if just very slightly, if he was more awake. If he wasn't returning to sleep now, body and soul content to wait for Shinji.

He would wait for him an eternity.

* * *

His footsteps were quick, and Shinji hoped they didn't sound frantic or even worse, angry, as he spied the light under the door to Misato's wing.

He hoped they'd just forgotten to turn it off, but when he knocked softly before trying the door handle (it wasn't kept locked, but he still didn't want to surprise them if they were asleep) he heard Misato say, "Come in?" with a voice that sounded far too awake for his liking.

Misato, Ritsuko and even Asuka: even caught up in his own thoughts and words he still noted her presence, even as he said, "Kaworu didn't manage to pull them into him intact. They're not still alive inside him. They're _dead, _Misato. Kaworu doesn't know if he's just not compatible with Lilim that way or Adam's soul hates every Lilim except me and _wanted _to destroy their souls. Especially because they were SEELE, they were the ones who planned to… do that. To her." Second Impact. The Rapture. What SEELE had the Katsuragi Expedition do was done to the whole world, not just Adam, but Shinji hadn't even been born yet. He didn't know anyone who died that day, and Kaworu was the person he loved, so maybe it wasn't too terrible that he found himself thinking of Second Impact as almost an afterthought, just a side effect of what those bastards did to somethi-someone that wasn't quite his Kaworu, but…

No, that wasn't what was important right now. "You were looking at him and seeing them, Misato. He's not them. He's nothing like them at all. And it hurt him, not just because he thought you hated _him _that much, but because I figured out you thought they might still be alive in him and told him and now whenever he thinks about it he remembers, remembers people he knew just shattering when he touched them. It makes him feel like, like he's poison to us, that he's evil, that he'll kill us, and it means he can't give _anyone _complementation. He can't do what they told him he was made for: all those people who died in Second Impact, Misato, and he can't bring them back," the words kept coming, tumbling from Shinji's mouth. "He blames himself for all those people, and those bastards told him he could bring them back, could fix everything, and he _can't_ and it makes him hurt for everyone, especially you," when Misato lost her father, "and…"

His voice trailed off as he saw Ritsuko come towards him, looking not quite annoyed but something very akin to it. Her hand grabbed his upper arm, and thankfully pulled him towards her room instead of kicking him out.

"Are you alright, Asuka?" he asked, voice small, as he passed the other two by, when Asuka finally turned her face to look at him and he saw what couldn't be tear tracks... Or were they?

"What do you think?" she asked, and it was clear that it would have been a demand if she wasn't tired, it wasn't late. Her throat was horse enough to make him worry that she really had been crying. "Right, you don't think, not unless it's about your boyfriend," she said, and snorted, and turned back to Misato. "Like anyone cares about!" Shinji heard as Ritsuko closed the door behind him.

"That's valuable intelligence," the scientist who was his sister's sister told him, "and I'm not going to ask why it couldn't wait until morning," not when Shinji had almost been shaking when he opened the door, with pent-up worry and frustration, "but Misato asked Asuka why Asuka didn't feel comfortable telling her about the prophet as soon as Asuka found out."

Right, Shinji remembered. Misato said something about Asuka trying to get drunk, and it must have been with Misato there, so Asuka must have known then and yet Misato still had to find out from Kyoko and the others.

"Your… niece…" Ritsuko sighed, putting a hand to her forehead. "Look, at least you talk to us. I know Misato's glad you do. If you have to come by in the middle of the night like this, then do it, or else Misato will think it's unfair, all the times she used to do that to you. Just this time wasn't the best time."

"Sorry," Shinji said softly.

"Don't… Look, so Asuka feels jealous of you because you're closer to Misato than she is, when that's half her own fault for being jealous over Kaji," of all the ridiculous things, all the ridiculous people, "so she didn't spend time with Misato while you were and half because you and Misato have just been living together a lot longer," Ritsuko said, smoothing her hair back now. "They're finally bonding, so that should help. I don't even know, shouldn't she be jealous of you over Kaji if anything? You're the one he trained… This is what happens when people feel instead of think, she's a college graduate, but… Well, she's one of us." One of this mixed-up little clan. "Look, even I'm doing it, thinking about Asuka's issues instead of focusing on what you said about Tabris and SEELE… If it was my daughter, I'd want Misato to handle business for me." While Ritsuko reassured Rei.

"Aspirin?" Shinji asked her.

"Aspirin," Ritsuko agreed, nodding deeply. "Have I mentioned lately that you're a very considerate boy who is going to make some eldritch abomination far more lucky than he could ever deserve and he had damn well better know it? Water, I'll find the pills." So Shinji didn't have to go back into the common room to go into Misato's and get hers.

Incipient headache taken care of and brindled cat (Shinji didn't recognize this one – Ritsuko must have brought home a stray for the house since all the house cats were moved to NERV for Rei) settled on her lap, the scientist asked, "So he can't even act as a transport for Lilim souls? I was starting to write up some sort of hypothesis along those lines, based on what he said to Rei about Lilith, but I thought it was probably wistful thinking." Hoping that the old bastards of SEELE really were dead. Hoping that they weren't still intact, in Tabris, when Shinji was merging with Tabris and might be contaminated, influenced by them.

Hard to imagine there was something worse than being influenced, mentally warped by an _abomination,_ but…

"He tried," Shinji said sadly, sitting down next to her. "That's how all of them ended up… not _physically_ dying." Drooling empty shells: that was what were placed in UN hands. Technically alive, but in no shape to stand trial.

Anything vindictive that was done to their bodies… Well, there weren't people in there to suffer. Shinji hadn't kept track of all the wheeling and dealing over their destinations. He didn't want to know, and if he didn't think about it, didn't find out about it, he wouldn't remind Tabris of them. Their existence. His failures, both to see through their lies and to make those lies a reality by taking in the souls of Lilim and granting them instrumentality and complementation.

Suddenly he remembered that, "I told Rei that he killed them, instead of absorbing them. That it was the first time he killed anyone… knowing that was what was going to happen, or even what might happen. I guess it got lost in the shuffle."

"I wonder if she'll remember that once I remind her of that specific element of the conversation… Her pediatrician is examining her, they've found some short-term memory problems." Something else for Ritsuko to worry about. "Nothing too worrying," the scientist said, as opposed to the mother, "and only for the period right before and during the merge."

"Wires got crossed more our first time," Shinji assured her, then realized that he'd brought up how he merged with Kaworu. Enough to get comfortable with it. With something like that.

"If I was going to blame you for not telling us about your love life, we would have to have _asked _about your love life," Ritsuko told him. "We had some fairly good ideas, and we avoided talking about them too." Who was we? Ritsuko, Rei, Naoko? The entire science department? Half Shinji's family, if not more?

It made him blush, and from Ritsuko's sardonic half eye roll she might have patted him on the shoulder if getting up to do that wouldn't have dislodged the cat. His stupidity (in this case self-inflicted, not wanting to think about it) was cute but he should really hurry up and grow out of it. "Even NERV employees aren't required to _volunteer _information on our sex lives. There's such a thing as TMI, even in my profession."

"You're making excuses for me," Shinji knew, looking away not because he was actually reading the notes on Ritsuko's kitty calendar (or were those drawings? Rei? The calendar hung on the wall was last year's) but because he wished he wasn't putting his family in that position.

"They didn't have to make that many: they were able to recycle several from when I started corresponding with Maya," Ritsuko said as the new cat started to purr. "And even Kaji didn't ask me for any 'juicy details' – or when he did, at least he pretended that the 'juicy details' were what misinformation SEELE was probably trying to feed Maya so she'd pass it on to me. That girl…" Ritsuko shook her head. "Idealistic and _trusting_. No wonder they wanted her working directly with Tabris."

"You're using Maya as an intelligence source?" Shinji asked, mostly because he didn't believe it.

"I was talking about excuses, wasn't I?" his sort-of-Wicked Stepsister reminded him. "We're all already used to the idea of… not that I've _fallen _for anyone," Ritsuko said as a matter of pride, "but someone on the other side falling for one of us."

In the interests of honesty, Shinji said "I have…"

"Yes, you're disgustingly head-over-heels for him: we've noticed." Ritsuko rolled her eyes _all _the way this time. "It wouldn't work otherwise, not with a telempath." A wave of the hand that wasn't petting the kitty ordered him to sit down on the couch next to her. "There's some quote… For I have loved not wisely, but too well? We've all seen your psych assessment."

Intensely loyal… but to people, not to principle.

Perhaps there was a trace of Kaji's influence there, Shinji thought, but had Kaji _really _chosen SEELE over Misato, when SEELE promised eternal life and happiness for everyone, including Misato and Ritsuko?

"You're too terrified of betraying people, of being a traitor," Ritsuko rephrased herself since that was the core of it, Shinji not wanting to be like his parents, "to edge close to it enough that you fall over the edge. As long as you're not put in a position where you have to make a choice."

Shinji didn't freeze: his eyes darted away from Ritsuko's again, back to that calendar, a reminder of Rei, one of the two members of his _real _family that he didn't really know. Oh, he might understand Rei a little better after being one with her, but that wasn't the same thing as getting to know someone. As spending time with them, as being real family, a proper brother. "I don't think I could make a choice," he said when he thought he could speak again. "I'd do anything not to have to make a choice."

Elegant trimmed nails in his hair now, stroking and scratching a little with the experience of both a veteran cat owner and someone else Misato had grabbed for midnight comfort. "Bullshit. We all heard you make one. You don't get paralyzed, not when it's important. Then again, you're only fourteen." So what did he know about anything, especially himself?

"Make one? Make what choice?" Shinji wondered, feeling lost and worried. Had he chosen? Had he already betrayed someone, in his heart?

"Killing him, if you had to do it." In the Commander's office, when he told them of Tabris' offer of a crown. "What he and the UN would both have wanted. You're not cowardly and you're not stupid. You're just young. And male. Although now I'm stuck being paranoid that instead of half Kaji's idiocy being that he was playing a trick on someone, playing them for a fool, maybe _all _of it was." So even they would underestimate him, as he laughed with them about how he had everyone that _wasn't _them fooled. "Your father fell for Yui Ikari. _My _mother fell for _Gendo_. Misato was seduced by a spy, I'm dating someone from SEELE, Asuka crushed hard on her stepfather… the only person in this family who hasn't been stupid in love is Rei…" But then she'd merged with Shinji by accident recently, so really… "If Kensuke Aida turns out to be secretly evil, I have needles with his name on them and plenty of tubes to dump the body in." LCL dissolved human flesh just fine, once the soul was gone.

"Kaworu said that Kaji really was in love with Misato, and he was worried that was disloyal of him," Shinji told her as the scratching nails moved down to his upper back and his eyes closed a little. It was late and Ritsuko was good at this.

The part of him trained by Kaji was evaluating the potential of those nails as murder weapons, but she'd already heard that from Kaji.

Ritsuko laughed. "Clean sweep, then."

Who else was there? Kyoko, but then Kyoko's husband left her when she didn't have any children. Shinji was pretty sure it was Kaji who had arranged for a paternity test to be performed on the other woman's child, when Kyoko's ex tried to get custody of Asuka after Kyoko went into the Eva. So much prestige was tied up in the Numbered Series pilots, and so much power, too: nothing any conventional military force could do against an Eva with a trained pilot except hope it ran out of power, nothing at all.

Discrediting him and his claims that Kyoko had been desperate for _his _child (and whoever had leaked that footage of Kyoko's empty shell with that doll…) hadn't put an end to it: the German government and the EU were next, with relatives coming out of the woodwork to get their hands on one of the children that would save the world.

Misato adopting Asuka was what brought an end to it: no one was going to try to argue with _Misato Katsuragi_.

That was after Rei, and it made sense, didn't it? All three confirmed potential Numbered Series pilots under one roof, where they could be kept away from poisonous influences and fanatics. Even Asuka still had her contamination ratio to worry about.

"…Asuka didn't think that Misato was just one more person who wanted control over her, did she?" Shinji said, feeling a little lost. It made sense that someone would theoretically feel that way, when he tried to distance himself from the knowledge that this was _Misato_, but… If it was someone else who took him in? If someone had taken him in only because he was a pilot and they wanted him to fight, then would they really have cared for him? Especially when Asuka was smart, she must have seen the proof that all of those people didn't want her for _her_, just for what having her would bring them.

Ritsuko sighed, and Shinji thought he felt her look away from him (up at the ceiling?) a moment before he felt the shift in weight, heard her lean her head back against the top of the couch. "Don't ask me: I'm not the one who does people. But if it was something logical, then Asuka would have dealt with it already. Emotional things are harder to pin down."

"And you can't solve a problem if you don't know what the problem is," Shinji said, echoing what Ritsuko herself said, the engineering approach to problems.

"And she hated admitting that she was being illogical," Ritsuko agreed. When someone refused to face up to what the real problem was… "She was willing to admit that she was being jealous over Kaji, but I bet that's because she doesn't feel that way _anymore_. But the debate over _you_ is happening right now, and that's reopened what happened with her mother. Why custody of Asuka was up for grabs in the first place."

Because the crazed empty shell was in no condition to take care of anyone, as dedicated to she was to the doll-Asuka, and the Eva wasn't human. Wasn't the real Kyoko, just a copy, an echo at best. The theory that the 'soul' was just the brain's energy field, and the original was still the original, still the real person.

When the Eva was the one that still saw _Asuka, _still loved her.

"So this is," my fault, Shinji started to say, and then groaned and put his head in his hands. "Have I really been thinking that it's all about me recently?" he asked plaintively.

"It's called being a teenager," Ritsuko said bluntly. "What _I _want to know is, if the ancestral race had the ability to edit humanity's irrational drives, then what kind of screwed-up people would _put more in_," the angels' drive to reach the seeds, "instead of taking them out or making them more manageable? Then I had a Kaji moment," paranoia, "and wondered what if they _did_. What if we Lilim _are _their attempt to make a saner, _wiser_ version of themselves? Just like they made the seed of _life's_ version of humanity stronger and longer-lived? What if we children of the seed of wisdom _are _the more rational upgraded version, what if they _did _upgrade our mental capabilities to the same extent they upgraded the other kind of abomination's physical capabilities?"

Shinji's blue eyes were wide as he listened to her, because wow, if that was true? If people back then would have had barely any ability to think, to at least try to restrain and handle intense emotion, like his feelings for Kaworu? And he felt like _he _was run over by this like an Eva crushing tanks underfoot!

He might have said "That must have sucked," if Ritsuko didn't hate people stating the obvious.

"And Tabris is utterly head over heels for you too, to the point he'd show his back to _me_." Forget Misato: she hadn't learned or used underhanded tactics, she had an Eva. Ritsuko was the one who had snuck into bases with Kaji. It was easy to fight with honor when you had armor: it was stupid when you were behind enemy lines and one bullet in the wrong place away from death.

"…Thank you," Shinji said quietly, because it really was insulting of him to think only about Misato as the threat to Kaworu, when Ritsuko was there too.

"Thank Rei," Ritsuko said bluntly. "Otherwise I would have taken the shot. Between Rei and Armisael we should be able to handle the terraforming without him, and Armisael can give us enough souls for centuries, even if she doesn't produce more as she matures. Taking him out would have made them safe," made them indispensible and confirmed that yes, NERV was still on humanity's side, not SEELE's or the abominations', "but Rei knows they're alike."

For _Rei's mother_ to kill someone so like Rei? To murder someone, to have everyone say it was justified because Tabris was an abomination, like Rei, even though Shinji loved him? Just like Ritsuko loved Rei… Right?

Shinji turned: Ritsuko smiled and drew one of those red-painted nails across her own throat. "You're going to be _very nice_ to your little sister."

Because Rei's feelings were the _only _reason Kaworu hadn't died this very day. Hadn't died in Shinji's arms.

Dr. Akagi was tasked with killing abominations just like the rest of them: she was Science Division, sure, but the Science Division had jurisdiction over weaponry, like the Evas themselves and NERV's N2 mine arsenal. There was no 'do no harm,' in Ritsuko's job description. Exactly the opposite, in fact. The Evas might be biological hybrids, but she was not that kind of doctor.

Kaworu was used to reading Misato. If she had moved to attack, there was a good chance learned reflex would have made him protect himself, even with Shinji there. Ritsuko, though?

It was something Ritsuko threw that hit Kaworu in the first place. Even though Kaworu knew it would be bad if strong alcohol hit him. Maybe that day was seared in his mind, maybe he recognized Ritsuko as a threat now, but maybe he didn't. Not trusting Kaworu, who didn't show any signs of blaming her. But then, when Kaworu repressed all negative emotions, didn't even allow himself to be aware of what he truly felt?

Shinji didn't blame Misato either, and it hadn't even occurred to him to be afraid of Ritsuko for Kaworu's sake. At first he thought that was a horrible failure, since he was supposed to have a trained mind, but then he remembered Kaworu pressed up against him, so loving and then desperate, and that was a reason his brain had stopped functioning even if it wasn't an excuse.

It was Kaji he blamed for taking Kaworu away from him that day, even when it was Ritsuko's vodka that hit Kaworu's face, broke his skin and destroyed his mask. That must have _hurt_, Shinji realized. Not just the rejection, the certainty that Shinji would be lost to him (until complementation, he reminded himself), but sores like that… they'd looked painful.

Kaworu hadn't cried out: Shinji remembered him trying to keep control, trying to hide his face, trying to remain Kaworu even though he must have been in pain. Trying to say that nothing was wrong, when reactions like that weren't laughing matters even for him. Especially for someone with a healing factor like his.

Ritsuko had done more damage to him than any UN agent ever.

And Shinji hadn't made the connection? Hadn't evaluated her as a threat because… why? Because creepy or not, she was the one who could stand to be around a baby abomination? She was the one who was sexting with the enemy, so she would be on his side in this?

What was he… No, he hadn't been thinking, clearly.

He sighed, because he was an absolute failure at protecting Kaworu. Kaworu was still alive, but it was clearly none of his doing. He wasn't good enough, so was Kaworu really sure there wasn't some biochemical reason he was in love with Shinji? Because Shinji wasn't good enough.

"There, see?" Ritsuko asked. "Teenager." She brushed at his shoulders, like Misato or Kaji brushing some lint or something off so he'd look presentable. "Come on, don't act like the weight of the world is on your shoulders."

"Even if it kind of is?" Shinji reminded her with a look, remembering the last pep talk she'd given him. The fate of the world _was _at stake in what Shinji did. What Ritsuko did, too.

"Only a percentage," she reminded him. "Plenty of other ways it can be screwed up by other people… Oh, stop sighing," she said, grinning at his torment as she patted him on the head.

"Do you think Asuka will be okay?" he asked, because he needed to stop letting his own insecurities and failures distract him from his family. Now he had 'underestimated Ritsuko' to add to the list of things to feel terrible about.

"She'll live, and she should be better off than before either way," Ritsuko said, not rolling her eyes this time. "I don't see how even Misato can screw things up at this point." Which was why Ritsuko was okay leaving them alone to interrogate Shinji. Oh, right, that was what she was supposed to be doing. "So Tabris can't trigger instrumentality since he'll destroy any Lilim soul he tries to gather other than yours, and he knows it?"

Shinji nodded, grateful for Ritsuko's quick comprehension.

"Well, that'll make Misato's day tom-" Ritsuko glanced at the clock. "Later today." It was well, well after midnight. "So Tabris left?" After they finished having sex? That many hours? From the way she looked Shinji up and down, Shinji wondered if she was wondering if Kaworu had… helped Shinji's stamina.

"I didn't want to leave him alone, so I waited until he was asleep," Shinji told her.

Instantly she frowned. "That was a stupid idea. You know what would happen if Misato woke up alone in the middle of the night." Then again, comparing Tabris to Misato? Why would he have night terrors, and wouldn't Shinji have mentioned them if he did? Still, "Get going," she said, pushing him lightly. "Come to the science department tomorrow," she added as he stood up. "We'll have you say this on the record." With recording devices for later review.

He nodded semi-absently, most of his attention on the door as he stepped carefully towards it. He didn't want to intrude on Misato and Asuka again.

They were gone when he carefully opened the door. First he thought that he hoped they hadn't moved on his account, but there he went again, thinking it was about him. Maybe they'd settled things and gone to sleep, or maybe they'd gone down to the gym to work out some aggression.

Tomorrow he needed to talk to them both, and he had to try to talk with Rei again. Well, Rei would be at the Science Department.

* * *

Kaworu was still there when he got back. Still warm under the thin cotton sheets (Shinji felt guilty about that for a moment, because Kaworu really should have silk to slide against that perfect skin), still Kaworu and thus unbelievably perfect in every way. Even when "You're awake?" Shinji whispered as he slid under the sheets.

Red eyes opened just a crack to smile for him. "I felt your return." Ah, that smile. "Mmm, to sleep next to you…"

"I'm sorry," Shinji blurted out. For leaving Kaworu to sleep alone.

"Less apologizing, more sleeping," Kaworu said softly, reaching out with sleep-weakened arms to pull Shinji against him, burying his nose in Shinji's hair. A soft sound, and "Dr Akagi?"

"Hm?" Shinji wondered, a little surprised because yes, but how did Kaworu know?

"Cat," was Kaworu's explanation, followed by a small yawn.

Had he gotten cat hair on him, sitting on Ritsuko's couch? Or did he just smell a little like cats? Well, that was much better than smelling another woman's perfume, he guessed. Kaworu did wear perfume sometimes… What Rei said about human hormones came to mind, but without his cologne (he hadn't put it on before he came across the city in the rain) Kaworu just smelled like rain.

Which was kind of Rei's point, that he didn't smell quite like a Lilim, but…

Suppressing a yawn nearly cost Shinji his train of thought, but "I like the way you smell." Then he realized what if Kaworu _was _wearing some kind of perfume right now, what if he thought Shinji only liked the artificial version of his scent, what if he wouldn't like the real Kaworu and being a good boyfriend was _hard_.

Breath in his ear, a kind, gentle hmm, a very Kaworu sound, but only loud enough he just barely heard it. Kaworu's lips brushed against the side of his neck, just briefly, and he settled Shinji against him, his love's back to his chest, and Shinji heard Kaworu's breathing slow. Felt the calm in the air, as Kaworu returned to sleep.

He generally had the right idea. Except about complementation, but no one was perfect.


	39. Exam and Notes

"It _feels_ like my body," was what Shinji said, wiping his face and rubbing his hair with the towel after he finished the assigned workout, taking care not to dislodge any of the monitoring equipment. There was better equipment built into his plugsuit, but a workout in a plugsuit? He shuddered at the thought: it got hot in those things, and sweat trapped under that plastic-stuff?

"According to him, he planned to recreate it based on your soul's memory," Ritsuko told him, already focused on the data. "Perhaps if I give you a shot of adrenaline…"

Was she checking whether or not Kaworu had 'upgraded' him? Something that might only show up if Shinji needed the extra strength, speed, or healing?

Shinji glanced at his arm, at all the places where Ritsuko had drawn blood. She could have just filled multiple vials from the same puncture, but he was probably lucky he got ointment and bandages for them at all, instead of her telling him to let them bleed so she could see how fast they closed.

No, she wouldn't do that, he knew. A shallow cut, maybe, but those needles had tapped veins and arteries. He couldn't do a full physical complete with workout if he was bleeding out onto the floor.

… Ritsuko knew that, right?

Of course she did: even if she wasn't that kind of doctor, she'd had to retreat with injuries. She knew what bleeding did to people. Probably even better than he did. Right.

What he should really be asking himself was, was she willing to endanger her precious data like that?

Not that he was enough of a fool to think that he was perfectly safe in Ritsuko's clutches, especially not after he'd insulted her by assuming that _Kaworu _was safe in her presence and with his shield down.

"No," Dr. Akagi decided, "that would have negative effects on your simulator training later."

Shinji blinked, startled and wide-eyed with more than a tinge of fright. "Simulator training? But I don't have an Eva anymore!"

"Not Unit 01, but we've succeeded in using the Reyvas as temporary souls for the Beta-type units. You _are _our most experienced sync-capable pilot." They'd have to be stupid not to use him, and the Commander was not stupid.

The commander also needed to justify his son's usefulness as a member of NERV to the UN.

Shinji let out a sigh of relief, because it really was amazing how much he didn't mind getting in an Eva as long as it wasn't _that _Eva. "The Reyvas are cute."

Ritsuko looked up at him, light from the computer screen reflecting off her glasses. "You've never met them," she said with certainty.

He'd never even tried, but there was something about her tone: he would have expected disapproval, more than a trace of awareness that it would be a bad thing if he had met them? Why?

Because he wasn't allowed to wander around NERV on his own anymore? He'd gotten that message loud and clear. Tabris' ability to use hyperspace, or rather Dirac Space, was limited, but if he could potentially use Shinji as a target, then if Shinji wandered around the depths of NERV, beyond the various perimeters and security measures? "Well, not after they were taken out of the Evas," he told her, "but I have been watching the news and reviewing my briefings." The Reyvas were very cute little abominations, and since the Cherubim existed, NERV was letting more information on the plans to sync them with the beta-types out to the press than they normally would have. Keeping the public calm by making sure they knew that NERV was working on keeping them safe, if it came to that.

Speaking of people he hadn't spent a lot of time with, "I thought I was supposed to see Rei today?"

"To think that you're actually willing to see her _now_, after she gave you an actual _reason _to be afraid of talking to her," as opposed to Shinji just having his head up his ass about Ritsuko's daughter… the mother grimaced. "She's taken over the door lock. Mom's working on it."

Shinji's eyes widened. Rei was overriding the Magi System's control over part of NERV's security (even if that had to be the lock on Rei's own room here) because she was that determined not to see Shinji?

She must really think he hated her now, he thought, hating himself more than a little. He _didn't, _and he'd like to say that he hadn't hated her before, just her face, but he hadn't given her any reason to think that he was ever going to be fair to her about things that weren't her fault, but rather because of how she was made.

She'd been one with him, but apparently that alone didn't make for perfect understanding.

…He should probably tell Kaworu about that, as part of the campaign to make him give up on complementation.

"Hopefully once there's a preliminary decision she'll stop blaming herself so much." Unless the preliminary decision was a bad one, but Ritsuko preferred not to think that way, for Shinji's sake as well as her daughter's.

A preliminary decision from the UN on Shinji's humanity, not to mention his Shinjiness, the degree to which he was still the same person.

"I expected a gulp or something. You're remarkably unworried," Ritsuko commented, pushing her glasses up a little before looking at him over the tops of them.

Sometimes, Shinji thought Kaji was right when he swore that Ritsuko had only started buying glasses in addition to contacts so that she could do that to people. "You were there: Kaworu's panicking for both of us." So Shinji had to be the one who kept it together, just like Misato did when Shinji thought Gendo might be Kaworu's genetic father even when she had just found out that her arch-nemesis was her half-brother. "If it was just me…" He paused. "I'd be worried about Rei, and everyone else would be worried about me, so… I'd still have to keep it together." Try to reassure everyone that he was fine.

They wouldn't fall for it, of course, so he'd get all the comfort in Misato hugs and Ritsuko logical arguments that could possibly help, but he'd still _want _to reassure them too. "It's a lot easier not to worry about myself when I'm worried about other people," Shinji realized, remembering when that abomination suddenly appeared while he had Touji and Kensuke in the entry plug with him because Ritsuko wanted to test interference patterns. And, Shinji suspected, see if Yui tried to influence them while they were in there, since that would give Ritsuko some data on whether she was doing anything to Shinji that Shinji might not be telling them about because it was really too late to redesign the entire piloting interface to give Shinji more protection when the abominations were already attacking, so he might have been trying to just suck it up and not tell them about what he was really going through.

"Tell me about it," Ritsuko agreed. "With all the macho crap Kaji used to pull in enemy territory, it's a miracle I don't have five times as many white hairs as I already do thanks to _Misato's_ stupid stunts." Another over-the-glasses look: had she been studying the Professor's? "Then there's certain teenage Eva pilots…" Shinji and Asuka: Ritsuko's little girl was only physically a teenager.

"Hey!" Shinji objected. "I didn't…"

"Getting your arm torn off, _again_, during the Bardiel Incident… I could go on." A slow grin. "Or I could give you _itemized expense reports_." The ones she had to fill out. Because of him.

Shinji wanted to say, "It worked, didn't it?" Touji was still alive, even if Shinji had taken some… Okay, a lot of risks there, even if he'd hung back and tried to keep the abomination-possessed Eva occupied with minimal damage to himself until he had _some _kind of plan.

It really was easier to worry about other people than it was to worry about himself, and he realized what happened then was even more proof. That was while Kaworu was his enemy, while he hadn't been watching his own back enough when he wasn't piloting. When he was piloting, though, _everyone's _lives were at stake, not just his, and with Touji (his friend, he knew now) in there? Taken over by an abomination through his Eva, when being taken over by his mother because of piloting the Eva she possessed was one of Shinji's worse nightmares?

Behind the glass that separated the observation area from the physical testing area with its devices and the treadmill Shinji had just gotten off (one of twenty - the other students from the piloting academy had to take these too) Ritsuko looked back down at the computer screen, pleased that Shinji was adequately cowed by the threat of expense reports, and went back to her data as Shinji wiped his face again with the white towel with its red Property of NERV stamp. "We're lucky we have so much data on you," Ritsuko said, mostly to herself. "A large enough sample pool helps error margin, and tracking over time can help block for age differences…" Since Shinji was still growing, "but we don't know what effects no longer piloting will have on someone's body, on top of decreased LCL exposure. If you're significantly _more _normal…" Some people would take that as Tabris trying to trick them into thinking the Reiclone turned into a Shinjicopy was human.

"I wasn't complaining about getting into a giant robot again," Shinji said. "As long as it's a different giant robot."

"Good point: I'll schedule sessions for you with Naoko and Kyoko… Or just Naoko, she's had you in her cockpit before." Since when Shinji was young they'd wanted to keep his exposure to Yui to the absolute minimum, so a lot of his early Eva piloting practice, while the simulators were being developed was 'behind the wheel' of Naoko, with Misato there to give advice and compensate if Shinji's inexperience and lower sync ratio with the older woman made them start to tip over.

Another look up at him, a piercing examination. "You're not going to ask if the tests that have come in yet have found anything?"

"No?" Shinji asked, a little puzzled. "Kaworu's medically trained, so I think he would have spotted it if he couldn't get something right. And then he would have mentioned that when he… was worried about me."

"When he tried to convince you to defect." Ritsuko's words were cold, clinical: not edged with 'are you stupid' for once because she knew Shinji was aware of that part. He was Kaji's student, after all.

"…Yeah," Shinji admitted, because it was better to be honest, with family anyway. "If he had a real reason to be so worried for me, he would have blamed himself." For messing up, as opposed to being angry at himself because he was afraid for a loved one, as though he didn't have any right to feelings like that. At least it was good that Kaworu had admitted to himself that he had feelings like that, and Shinji felt a little happy inside that Kaworu worried about him like that, cared about him that much.

"Knock that off," Ritsuko snapped.

"That showed up on your equipment?" Shinji blushed, because if Ritsuko could detect it when Shinji felt that burst of tightening in his chest that came with the excitement of everything being perfect and wonderful, all of it crashing in on him and maybe that was why they called it a crush? The thrill of being hit with how… _Kaworu_. Just Kaworu.

"_I have spent time in confined spaces with newlyweds_," Ritsuko said darkly. "Don't make me get the spray bottle. If there's a maximum safe dosage of lovey-dovey radiation, I've already exceeded it." Maybe it would give her skin cancer, or make her break out in hives. Heart-shaped hives.

That was the seventh worst thing about sort-of-dating someone on the other side. Not that she would have been able to get sweet payback by making out in front of Misato and Kaji when those two were so shameless, not without resorting to disgusting pet names and other things she wouldn't be caught dead doing, but she could have made out in front of _them_ sometimes, see how they liked it.

…Actually, they would have liked it just fine, she knew. That was one of the problems with having open-minded friends who would have been genuinely happy to see their friend happy. Apparently people infected with love wanted the condition to spread.

Should she consider Tabris kissing Shinji in front of Misato to be revenge enough? Not really, when the person she really wanted to suffer was Kaji.

So, what was he doing, down there in the heat worse than the Eternal Summer's? Celebrating that his student and his Lord had hit it off, or frustrated that Third Impact still hadn't happened, that there wasn't any instrumentality or complementation?

That other kids like him were still out there, living the kind of life he'd lived before he identified one of SEELE's undercover recruitment agents and demanded they give him a chance to smash this world down (if it refused to change, she wanted to believe that Kaji still believed that it could change, that there were good people out there and someday they might outnumber the bastards)?

What did he think, of the world NERV was working to save?

Had he ever thought it was worth it? Not Misato's fights with SEELE, and of course he'd wanted to help them beat the other abominations since that was important, there wouldn't be any promised day if one of them had won, but the rest of it?

Kaji had always seemed so… If someone like him, who knew how to enjoy life to the hilt, didn't consider life worth living, didn't think existence as Lilim was worth it, then…

He might still have loved Misato, but he'd turned his back on her to save Tabris from them. For Misato's own good, and the world's – did he really believe that? Had he believed that, even as he waited for Keel to have him killed?

Because if Kaji had never changed his mind, never doubted, despite everything he'd experienced alongside Misato and Ritsuko, despite their bond, then would Shinji really be able to change Tabris' mind?

Love didn't change people. Anyone who said otherwise was deluding themselves. Even if it did work that way, then once they changed they'd no longer be the person you'd fallen for in the first place.

Ritsuko was the one who had told Shinji to marry Tabris, since even if it only lasted three years that would buy them time, hopefully even get them to the point where the current sort-of-alliance with SEELE to analyze the prophecies and reterraforming options became the new normal, but what then? When the honeymoon was over, when the divorce papers were filed?

Would one of them be desperate enough to want to keep the other by any means necessary?

She could almost hear Kaji whistling that damn song about 'it's the end of the world as we know it.'

In hindsight, she really should have had at least _some _suspicion that he was on the wrong side. He'd certainly been pure evil, that _boy_…

* * *

When Shinji was allowed to leave after tests, tests and more tests, it was late enough that he flopped down on the backseat and the Intelligence Division driver had to carefully poke him awake with an umbrella when they arrived at the manor.

Reaching his room, he was really grateful that his sheets hadn't been changed. Well, aside from the sheet that Shinji had tossed in the laundry himself before they fell asleep, but the bed still smelled like Kaworu a little.

That made it easier to feel like it wasn't big and empty, without Kaworu or Misato.

Sleeping alone, without anyone else there, not even the sound of someone breathing? He didn't like that. It made him feel lonely.

If he had the energy to move, he would have wandered over to the women's wing to borrow Ritsuko's new cat.

What had he done before Kaworu?

Shinji's eyes opened, staring up at the ceiling over his bed. Right. Music.

The player and earbuds he'd used for night music were still in the drawer he'd kept them in before Kaworu Nagisa left and took music with him.

And no wonder Shinji couldn't face music anymore when that happened, because the very first song that started up reminded him of Kaworu.

He fell asleep with a soft smile on his face, in the dim light from the commemorative Unit 00 nightlight.


	40. The Glory of the Lilim

Audiences with his people in the morning, a more personal meeting at noon followed by an address to the council, a few hours of healing and then more meetings going long into the night.

Because of the need to travel back and forth to France and then Japan in secret, his lessons with the Maestro and later practices and concerts with Shinji had taken him away from his people for three or four days out of the month, sometimes twice a month. There had been no real need for him to explain that: it was assumed he was studying, going into seclusion to meditate or train his powers, accomplish some mission for the inner council… so many things that needed doing, and of course he could always be contacted once he became connected to Refuge's systems in order to fight off the threat of Naoko Akagi's Magi.

Now, however, he would be away for a week, and not simply meeting with the UN but _working_. He could fly back through Dirac Space at nights, if need be, but he wanted to focus every bit of attention and effort he could muster on this, so Refuge must be prepared for his absence.

The upcoming joint tests wouldn't be the first time he had cleared a large area of LCL: what remained of India lay south of Refuge, and even if the UN didn't list the area covered by LCL as part of the areas Refuge actually _held_, there was no one living there to dispute the title. Refuge didn't object to the UN moving troops over it because what did it matter, who held some fraction of the Dead Sea?

Once he could transform the LCL over a decent-sized area, the science advisors had come up with a substance for him to copy. Something like plastic: still organic, but deliberately made as hard as possible for LCL to dissolve. Turn the LCL itself into walls, and fuse those walls down to the bedrock, to protect what lay behind them.

First just organic matter – as long as it wasn't LCL, that was what mattered – but with a few months of practice he could now recreate different types of soil, and most importantly (and most difficult) the microorganisms that lived in that soil and helped make it fertile.

The map of Refuge's plan to reclaim India, the one he'd delivered to the UN, looked like a honeycomb. Divided into almost a hundred segments by those walls, so that if the LCL broke into one, it could be contained there easily instead of spreading to more of the subcontinent.

Of course the UN demanded that as much of that land as possible be 'returned' to India's 'government in exile' despite the fact that government was almost entirely the UN's puppet as well as its creation.

India was scythed bare by Second Impact: oh, there were rescue efforts in the wake of the great explosion and tsunami – tsunamis, as the aftershocks followed, the earth springing back from the great explosion distorting the shape of its crust as well as its axis – but almost all of the survivors were those outside the country at the time. Everyone knew that the UN was counting quite a few people who no longer had Indian citizenship – whose _grandparents _had become citizens of other nations – at the time of Second Impact in order to boost the numbers and have an argument for keeping as much territory as possible out of the hands of SEELE.

Quite a few of Refuge's council had made angry speeches about how this territory wouldn't be an issue, it would still not be worth living on if it weren't for Tabris, but surely once Rei was trained, or the UN began to make use of Armisael they could have reclaimed it just as easily as he could.

If not more easily, because Earth was a Seed of Wisdom environment, nothing at all like what Tabris' instincts would have him shape.

That begged the question of why the UN _wasn't _using them, hadn't ordered NERV to have Rei Fuyutsuki begin training even if they didn't trust Armisael, but that way lay dark thoughts. He was sure the memories of the old men would have many guesses for him, each more horrible than the last.

Horrible and correct, but that was the risk of it. That Lilim did things for many reasons, and SEELE had only seen the bad, not the good.

He could not rely on them, not unless he wished his thoughts, his opinions of the Lilim to only grow more and more distorted by their hatred and self-loathing.

It might be in Lilith's power to transform this entire planet at once: it was not in his. Reclaim the land so the Lilim could grow food, could plant trees and restore animal species that now survived only in gene banks. After that, the seas themselves would have to be divided: otherwise currents would carry LCL into the areas he reclaimed, destroying his work.

This planet was vast, and even if the Cherubim already showed signs of developing at the same rate he had, it would be three or four more years until they could be allowed to help even with supervision, even just with turning the LCL into other organic matter. Turning it into earth and small living things would likely take longer. If he hadn't had years of practice healing Lilim bodies, reconstructing their cells? The forms angels shaped were nothing like as small and complex. So many miniscule, vital moving parts.

The UN had already set up camp and started to survey the southern portions of India – areas where it was still base organic matter, something like the gel in a petri dish, because Tabris' efforts to replace that with soil were working outward from Refuge's territory down the center of India, staying away from the tip and the coasts. He'd built those walls high as well as deep, but even though he had been newborn then, the memories of tsunamis, of gargantuan waves washing over houses, lived on in his advisors. It would be a waste for fertile soul, for land where crops could grow, to be ruined by an act of nature.

People from Refuge were already moving into the reclaimed territory, and the labor that once was used to dig the cities deep was now building homes, roads: all the necessary infrastructure. Refuge might be rich in arable land by the standards of most countries, but much of that was on mountainsides. Flat land was easier to farm.

For people who had spent a decade huddling underground in apartment housing to have their own homes, to look up at a blue sky… He hoped that he could keep them all alive long enough that they would have a blue sea as well.

And not simply his own people.

Seven areas: that was the agreement with the UN. Hexagon-shaped walled cells in the center of Africa, the six on the edges with the petri dish substance that for now covered most of India and one with soil, so the UN could run tests. Including test farms. A great many people were already voicing suspicions about what would happen to people who ate crops grown in soil formed by an abomination, contamination being what it was.

Still, perhaps… Whatever they learned from his efforts would be passed on to the Akagis and Lilith, at least? The term for him doing something like this for them was 'goodwill gesture,' but after Second Impact, given what he was… He knew better than to expect gratitude, but perhaps they might grow used to him acting in good faith, at least?

At least the demonstration project hadn't been cancelled after what happened to Rei and Shinji.

…he hoped that incident wasn't the reason Rei still remained inside NERV, instead of leaving the Tokyo-3 area to test her powers. The main island of Japan had been walled off years ago, soil contaminated by LCL dug out and thrown out into the Dead Sea, but the ravaged ruins of Tokyo-1 were so close to where she lived. Surely she had permission to travel that far away from NERV on business? Especially when she was an Eva pilot, and they'd preferred to fight the other abominations a safe distance from the geofront when possible. Surely it wouldn't be that much of an obstacle to get her permission to travel that far from where Lilith's body was contained?

Unless he had underestimated the strength of the Lilim factions who didn't want any abomination to do anything, much less with official permission. He supposed that since they couldn't really stop him from doing what he liked, it was easier for the moderates to make agreements for him to do things, even though he was an enemy? Surely some of them thought of it as trying to put him in harness, or limit the damage.

After all, without this agreement to only terraform this area of Africa and wait for the UN to complete their studies before reclaiming any more, he would simply have gone ahead and begun work on the entire continent after completing India. Now his next project would be Australia, far from any pre-existing Lilim habitation. Especially Europe, whose mountains and position north of Africa made it relatively well-protected and the center of UN industrial production.

After Australia… _Some _of the islands of Southeast Asia were close enough to the surface to be worth reclaiming, or even still above sea level. Since Antarctica had never really been fit for Lilim habitation, much less farming, the next logical place to work on (other than the coastlines of already-inhabited areas, which the Lilim were working on themselves) would be the continent of South America, and _that, _his advisors thought, he was just going to have to go ahead and do.

Hopefully by the time he got that far, worry about the food supply would have decreased enough the Lilim didn't get too upset about him operating south of their main breadbasket. There wasn't even a NERV branch on the North American continent. The branch of GEHIRN focused on S2 engine research was once there, but when the Grea-Fuyutsuki revealed GEHIRN's true nature and purpose, all of its facilities were shut down during the investigation, and that one never reopened.

_NERV's _S2 engine research facility had been sited on a desolate hunk of rock in the middle of a dead sea, which the incident with Bardiel had confirmed was a very, very good idea.

Tabris didn't like to think like this, but he had to learn, and knowing Keel… He would have wanted to test one of the S2 engines to destruction, know what happened when one went out of control. And to have that happen in NERV Nevada, where billions of dollars had been spent watering the desert in order to produce more food for the Lilim? Hopes that the S2 engine could produce free, plentiful energy that could be used to power space missions, survival away from a dying world, would have been nicely dashed.

The psychological impact of destroying NERV Germany, and with it a large chunk of UN population and production capability would have been even greater, but that facility was intended to produce far too many components crucial for SEELE's true plans. As for NERV England…

Tabris really didn't know what he was going to do about NERV England. He couldn't ask Shinji, not when Shinji would be _required _to pass on information like that.

Yet the leaks from that branch, among them a means of detecting the Children of Armisael? Just that such a method existed made the Lilim think that Armisael's children were not like them, were one more breed of abomination. It was a blow to Lilim hope that they might have a future as a people, as cultures.

A calculated blow. And very much against Tabris' expressed wishes. Which… very clearly confirmed just whose side the SEELE cell at the heart of NERV England's command staff was on.

Tabris restrained a sigh with long practice as he looked up at the glass roof overhead, the ironwork casting shadows of trumpet-bearing angels on the ground before his throne as the next petitioner was led forward to stand in the circle of light cast on the white marble floor by the mouth of one of those trumpets.

Lilim artwork would never cease to amaze him: two of the other trumpets were placed to create the proper circles of light during noon and late afternoon audiences. How did they manage to think of all the things they took into consideration when designing, bringing forth from nothing, so many things?

Expertise was the fruit of long practice, experience and mistakes, yes, and there was also the knowledge from those who came before, but… Why would anyone wish to cast aside the power of the Fruit of Knowledge? Even in the so-called 'ugliness' of mortal life, such beauty, such craft! Unlike Adam's children, the Lilim possessed bodies that must be sheltered from the elements, and from that was born architecture and clothing like that he wore now.

To think that it was possible for a Lilim ruler to spend enough on _clothing_, just on clothing, hundreds of outfits and exotic materials, that it could make a significant dent in a national budget! Tabris should be glad that Keel had given the PR people handling him a sane budget even before he told the young angel that he was old enough to begin managing his own household finances, with the help of accountants of course.

Giving Tabris not just training but responsibility, something to keep him busy, something to make him an _effective _figurehead, because too-lavish spending had cost other rulers their people's love, and rightly so. As much as Tabris loved clothing, to be covered in Lilim art, to become part of an artwork himself (because clothing could not be appreciated properly until it was worn, until it was seen as the artist intended), how could anyone not wish to wear the same outfit twice? Discarding beauty merely for the sake of status, while children starved? While their people died, and the creations they could have devised died with them?

Perhaps he could understand the temptation to hoard beauty, to hoard art, so many beautiful things in this world, but to have them meant he needed a place to put them, and artists to create them, and it was better to share the art with others so that they would be inspired, and really it all just came around to protecting all the Lilim and making them happy in the end, didn't it?

Just like to wish for Shinji's happiness meant he had to make this entire world happy. The thought made him feel like a child again, when he'd truly believed that he could make all the Lilim happy and then they wouldn't be sad anymore and he could have friends and everything he wanted. That joy and eagerness to be about it and why oh why did the promised day have to be so many years away? It was delightful to realize that he could indulge his selfishness, as long as he thought it through, tried to use the power of the Fruit of Wisdom.

However did they manage all the things they had to know, to manage, to function as Lilim?

No, not merely to function: to excel, to perfect the necessities of survival to the point of making them beautiful. They took their inability to touch the minds and souls of others, formed language and music to bridge the gap, and from that came song and story.

Stories were such a dizzying concept: how on earth could Lilim find pleasure in falsehood? In the knowledge that one person's reality could never be anything more than a story to any other person? And all the other people around them would tell their own versions of anything that happened, because they could share the truth only imperfectly.

These angels and their trumpets were born of more of those stories: the angels in the book in question looked nothing like the beautiful figures of Lilim stories. Nothing like him. If anything, Adam's other children were more akin to the ones in that book than he was, with his pale Lilim form that many called beautiful.

He wondered if the petitioner had even looked up, had even realized the patterns of light and shadow on the floor weren't abstract geometric shapes. When he was in the presence of the divine prince? When he had come forward so hesitantly, clutching those papers with white-knuckled hands? The petition was very important to him, perhaps too important for him to appreciate the beauty around him.

Or had he? Tabris knew, now, that this beauty was intended to inspire awe, not appreciation and certainly not relaxation. To make them nervous, not make them smile. The tradition this art borrowed from was one designed to instruct Lilim to worship something greater than they were. To bow down before it and offer prayers, thanks and adoration. He'd hoped when this place was built that by meeting Lilim in beautiful surroundings, the beauty would put them at ease, would bring them joy and happiness. Perhaps that they'd be too distracted by the glory of Lilim culture to pay too much attention to him. Not more than he was due.

Hopefully the reminder of their _own _glory, the glory of the work of the Lilim heart, mind and hands, would keep them from seeing him as the glorious one, from bowing and scraping. From seeing themselves as inferior, when they _weren't_. When he was created to serve _them_, to bring them happiness, not the other way around.

For art itself to be one more thing Keel and the others had twisted to their purposes… But what was he to do? This hall was indeed beautiful, and to destroy a work of Lilim art? Have a new hall built, when the budget was tied up building _homes _for Lilim, replacing those lost in Second Impact? As much as any home could ever be replaced, when they were made of people and memories that let Lilim forget loneliness and find happiness.

He had only the rest of today to set his own house in order before he went to work on the terraforming project. He really did wish he had Israfel's power to be in two places at once… No, what he really needed was the ability to focus all of his mind on two things at once, because it was the power of the Fruit of Wisdom he needed. Both to try to figure out what was best for his people, and to figure out how to terraform a Lilim world.

Only soil, with a few microbes… at least he'd managed loam, so it wouldn't blow away in the wind anymore, but he really wished he could do better, especially when for a demonstration they would be expecting him to do his best, pull out all the stops to impress them, and for his best to be so meager? True, the Lilim could take it from there, he was sure they could manage even with the petri dish material, they were already discussing blue-green algae and other things, and yet…

This again, this fear that he was not good enough.

When he could not grant them complementation and instrumentality? When he could not grant them what he had promised? What he had _been _promised?

If a Seed of Life did not have the necessary power, then he could only hope the Seeds of Wisdom did. If Rei would only be allowed to train in terraforming!

If Rei would only be allowed to experiment with her other powers?

If Rei would only come here, so Refuge's scientists could test her capacity to hold souls, her ability to grant complementation and instrumentality?

If only he had kept her by his side, managed to protect her from Keel and Gendo Ikari alike? If only she had been raised here, would she have been willing and able to grant his people the happiness he could not?

She was his sister, and Shinji's: he should not be thinking of how he wished to use her.

He should not envy her the powers she possessed. That she might possess. Tabris' terraforming abilities had already improved with training: perhaps if the Lilim world survived, he could find some way to call back the dead and grant them happiness even if he couldn't bring about complementation?

Perhaps he should have gone after _all _the core members of the original SEELE, the ones likely to make trouble, on that terrible night. He'd told himself that he would stop with them, but he'd kept himself to the ones within his reach. Because to devour NERV personnel? Even if they were SEELE in truth, even if the Lilim willingness to suspect their own would have begun a witch hunt inside NERV worse than the one in Kaji's wake…

Even if breaking the moral authority of NERV, if causing the UN to suspect that Fuyutsuki had known about the SEELE penetration and done nothing, might have given him an excuse to rescue both Rei and Shinji. Not that he'd thought of it as an excuse, on that night. When he discovered that Gendo Ikari had _already_ left Refuge, was surely traveling towards Tokyo-3 and Shinji. Surely he intended to try to make use of Shinji, or at least arrange things so that the UN would think he was, and poor Shinji would have more suspicion cast on him because of his parentage.

The desire to rescue him, to keep him, even before they made up, even when Shinji would have considered it a kidnapping and surely hated him.

The things the Lilim mind thought up, the things the Lilim heart desired…

So much turmoil in Tabris' mind that he'd forgotten to warn them about Gendo Ikari, and Shinji had been kidnapped by those who did not care from him from the embassy's own doorstep, while Tabris watched and suspected nothing.

It was not in his nature to be suspicious: that was Shinji, but for Shinji's sake… Even if Shinji wanted to protect him from having to think of such things, he couldn't let his thoughtlessness cause any more trouble for Shinji.

Perhaps he should just tell Shinji about the NERV England issue. Shinji had training in such things, and when he passed it on to the Commander of NERV it would be discretely. Much better than someone with such a terrible track record handling such things trying to come up with a strategy, especially when distancing Refuge from the core of Old SEELE meant that this was no longer _his _internal matter, but NERV's. Those people clearly had no loyalty to him, or the _people _of Refuge: by putting children in danger against his wishes they had made themselves none of his concern… Except they were still people, doing what they thought was best, and so it was hard _not _to be concerned for them. Hard not to wish to soften the blow, or to spirit them out of UN territory before they were captured, interrogated and sentenced harshly.

The precedents set after the Great Traitor's revelation and in the years since, furious Lilim disregarding their own legal codes on the flimsiest of pretexts… So many good people had fled from such terror that it was hard not to feel for those about to be caught up in it.

The law was that any SEELE believer in UN territory was an enemy out of uniform and thus a spy, an enemy in wartime without honor and thus not entitled to decent treatment, but while many innocents had suffered because of that law when they had never done any spying, or taken any action against the UN, those of NERV England _were _spies. Had done harm to the UN, including its _children_. So what was he to do? Or was it arrogance to think it was his decision at all?

He didn't have to make a decision now, when he had so many other matters to attend to… Or perhaps he did.

Because revealing the Children of Armisael showed that the conspirators of NERV England wished to harm the future of the Lilim.

And the teams that would evaluate Tabris' work in Africa: there were many of them, since the Dead Sea of LCL was everyone's concern, but since it was the work of an abomination, chief among them would be the delegations from NERV Germany… and NERV England. When England's position as an island meant NERV England _already _oversaw a great many experiments with LCL reclamation methods, performing them in their own backyard.

Had they been sabotaging those experiments all along, to make sure that the Lilim knew how bleak their future was?

He _hated _contemplating that anyone might be possible of such malice, such cruelty. Deliberately stripping people of their hope? Yet when they truly believed that the Instrumentality of Man was the only _true _hope, perhaps they saw it as relieving people of cruel illusions. Delusions. Making them see that they _must _attain Instrumentality, before the Lilim were destroyed. Before everything they had built was lost.

Smiling for the petitioner as he stood to take the papers from the man's hands personally, promising fifteen percent tax relief for the district for another year, until they had fully recovered from the flood damage (and he'd see what more he could do when he returned – even when there was no more need to pay for Eva construction or more protection for the cities, rebuilding a subcontinent was quite expensive even with angelic power to help), he found himself contemplating again why Lilim believed in evil.

It was such an appealing concept. If some people were evil and that was why terrible things happened, than all that was necessary was to make them stop being evil, or even simpler to kill the evildoers, and then the problem they had caused would be solved. 'Evil' was something separate from goodness and good intentions, that could be excised without diminishing the good or harming the whole.

When no one was evil, simply acting as they thought was best because of some very real problem? Then even making them stop would not remove the problem.

Keel had clung to the delusion that Lilim were flawed, evil, and if they could only remove the flaw, make the Lilim transcendent and perfect, there would be no more sorrow.

Some Lilim believed that art could not come without suffering: what if they were right? Would instrumentality strip the Lilim of their glory?

Without individuality, there would be no _Shinji_, Shinji of the glorious soul.

If complementation would not give people their loved ones back, then what was he to do? Could even Lilith grant a communion of souls without complementation? Could the lost Lilim be recalled without the mass first attaining instrumentality?

He wished to recapture the SEELE scientists at NERV England not simply because they were people, but because of their minds. If they had known the truth of SEELE's plans for so long, then they might be invaluable in plotting out another course. If they were not so dead-set on their current course that they would work to sabotage all others.

Even at the expense of children's lives.

What damning reports might they be writing even now? On him, on Rei, on Shinji?

He looked up at the ceiling again as the next petitioner was led forward.

What he took from this one was not the paperwork he carried. Now he let himself sigh. "Aoba, I appreciate that I need to keep in practice, but not today, please." Even if theoretically when he was distracted was when he would most need to be in practice.

"He's not ours, is he?" the captain of his guards was already asking someone else – he had told his men to arrange some without telling him, after he realized that Tabris was watching him for warning of when another impromptu test was coming up.

"He must not be," Tabris knew.

Even if Tabris had practiced neutralizing poison in cases like these, no pretend assassin would use real poison. Practicing capture was _not _worth taking a risk like that with someone's life. If this was a drill, Tabris was going to be very cross with someone, and so would Aoba, from the annoyed look on that long face.

"He had a poison capsule in one of his teeth. And I can't take the time to keep him alive while he's interrogated," Tabris said.

"No, not with… Ah."

Tabris really wished he hadn't figured out what Aoba had realized as soon as his guard made that sound. "Throwing someone's life away, just to delay my arrival in Africa?"

"I'm wondering how one of _those _groups even managed to get an agent in here: that man is an immigrant." Tabris' security _did _background check every petitioner. That this person was an immigrant meant he'd made it past Tabris' screening. "He must have been recruited by someone grandfathered in." Someone who hadn't been screened, either thanks to coming in early or remaining behind in conquered territory.

"No," Tabris said sadly. "Hand the short list over to the head of-you already have."

Aoba didn't apologize: Tabris had known he was like all those times His Holiness hadn't fired him.

"Try to avoid the ones in research and theory application." He needed them, but if they really were sending people to die for the sake of what would hopefully just be a minor setback even if it had worked?

The short list consisted of the people, in Keel and the others' opinions, most likely to make trouble for Tabris, Refuge and the Lilim as a whole due to their beliefs. The trouble was that all of them were very valuable where they were, which was why Keel and the others had kept them around even when likelihood to be disobedient towards Tabris was linked to likelihood of disobedience to authority in general, and SEELE was not a big fan of having people on the edge of the inner circle who weren't utterly reliable, not after Fuyutsuki. Especially not after years of Gendo Ikari playing prima donna.

Two more of the guards were already coming forward to take the unconscious man off His Holiness' hands. "I'm sorry," Tabris apologized to the new one. "Normally I'm not really that much trouble to guard."

After tentatively returning his smile, she glanced at Aoba for permission to speak. "I see what the Captain meant when he said this was glorified crowd control, except when it wasn't."

"Very true," Tabris agreed, glad he'd gotten words along with the blush and the lowered eyes. Instead of hemming and hawing, the knowledge that they were expected to speak conflicting with the knowledge that this was _His Holiness_. Repeating a joke in his presence, even what was practically the official unit in-joke, was good for little over three days on active duty in his guard.

A pity she wasn't what she seemed. He supposed she must be an incredible actor by Lilim standards, but he could see the wide, fanged grin hiding under that curved-lip smile. "Well, we have to justify our salaries, right? And our right to be in your presence, your Holiness." When so many envied them their positions.

Why did he feel like he had felt something like her, somewhere before?

"Forgive me for hoping you spend most of your time being very bored," he told her, because he did hope that was the case.


	41. Command Staff Meeting

"Of course we knew," his Dad said as he pushed his chair back to get up from the table and get himself some tea. The serving staff had to have the morning off during family breakfasts like this: too much classified material, since they were supposed to be the one exception to the rule about business at the table. Misato had called for this one two days ago, but a letter from Tabris, on the eve of the African experiment? Dropped into Shinji's music room since it wasn't something to trust to embassy post and he didn't have the time to speak to Shinji himself, no less. He needed tea before he considered the implications of that.

They were probably good implications. It would be nice to think that they'd won at least one battle in the intelligence war, when SEELE had everyone penetrated so deeply Kaji would certainly turn it into an extremely dirty and unpleasant sexual metaphor if he were still here. Misato would phrase it more in terms of fucking the world over, hard.

NERV's commander was already in a good mood, though, because the best possible omen for how today was going to turn out was that both Misato and Asuka had come into breakfast wearing exercise clothes. So, they'd hit the gym together, had they? Wonderful! Much, much better late than never. He would have to tell Naoko later.

Shinji stared, not because he was confused, _that_ part made perfect sense, but, "Then why did you let them do something like leak the Armisaelim detection method?" Or, how to jury rig professional contamination level testing equipment and an AT field detector (no survivalist kit was complete without one) into a device to confirm that your child under a certain age wasn't a Lilim.

"Because we weren't expecting them to," Ritsuko said crossly, hand clenched around the handle of her coffee cup because she wanted to strangle something _else_. "They were just a conduit: I didn't think they'd be able to come with something that _fast, _especially without orders." On their own initiative. "We thought that was unrelated."

"A conduit?" Asuka said. "There were SEELE spies _in NERV _sending our developments back to them and you knew it?"

"Of course not," Professor Fuyutsuki told her, sitting back down and waiting for his tea to cool. "NERV England is a sub-station, purely experimental. We didn't send them anything SEELE didn't already have, not anything with tactical implications at least. The conduit went, well, I can't guarantee that it went only one way, when we were dealing with Keel, but allowing SEELE a covert method of funneling information to us was unfortunately essential."

"They passed us a lot of information over the table," Misato chimed in, after she finished her second beer of the morning, "but even though all of us needed to defeat the abominations, there's a lot of stuff that the UN would never have trusted, or let us trust, if it came from them." That had to be given to them under the table.

"So they infiltrated NERV England, or rather let agents of GEHIRN stay in place, in order to funnel that information to us by 'discovering,' information SEELE already knew or discovered later as they continued their research and development," Fuyutsuki said, nodding. "If we had shut them down, they would have had to suborn someone else in order to get us that information. In hindsight, I'm certain they would have… I'm certain they _did _use Kaji." All the information he and Ritsuko had extracted from SEELE facilities. Much of it was information NERV needed, and thus information SEELE needed them to have. "But I could have sworn," he said, sounding like a confused old man, "that they knew we knew."

Shinji looked over Tabris' letter again. "It says he found out about it at all from their memories, but he seems to think we _didn't _know. I'm just not certain if he would have checked if they knew we knew. He tries not to go fishing, but this looks like a pretty complete report," on the penetration at that facility, "so wouldn't that have turned up?" Given how memories were associated. "If they were using these people to pass information to us, then the old men must have put a lot of thought into how reliable we would consider that information."

Fuyutsuki, Ritsuko and Misato looked at each other before the other two focused on Ritsuko. Research was her department, and she had worked a little more closely with Kaji than Misato had, especially on that front. "Perhaps they thought Kaji would report it, if we knew?" Ritsuko wondered. "It's not like we told the UN oversight or regular Intelligence division about it," not when that would lead to anti-SEELE people finding out and destroying the conduit on their own initiative, out of their own fury. Witch hunts were a problem even when everyone was innocent: NERV England would have been gutted and the far more vital NERV Germany wouldn't have escaped unscathed. "We just assumed that we wouldn't have figured it out if they weren't expecting us to figure it out and make arrangements to keep anyone else from figuring it out."

"If he was telling the truth in that letter about when he stopped sending reports back at all…" Misato looked thoughtful. "Maybe they thought keeping us in the dark was more important than he did." The old men would have wanted to know that Fuyutsuki had seen through them, while Kaji didn't think it was worth breaking cover for, not as long as the conduit still functioned.

"Now I feel like an idiot," Ritsuko said, pinching her brow. "The one who leaked the detection equipment was sacked and sentenced," to hard labor, of course, "but since they were relatively new and gullible I thought that the agents in that department weren't responsible for the leak. They were working on detecting finer AT field variations, studying Lilim AT fields since we didn't have a very large sample pool of tame angels to help us fine-tune telling the difference between Pattern Orange and Pattern Blue. I should have remembered that these were SEELE agents: they shouldn't have been blindsided by a leak like that."

"They made sure he leaked it," Misato said, pushing back her hair, eyes narrowed. "That he thought it was his own idea, too." She nodded. "I'll have Hyuga reopen the case, quietly. See if he remembers who said what to nudge him along."

"We should be able to catch most of them in the initial arrests," Ritsuko said, "provided Kaji identified all of them to us, and they haven't done any recruitment. I doubt they have." Not when their goal was to keep breathing long enough to bring about SEELE's promised day. "He guessed they didn't even know who all the others are, and if they tried to suborn someone who was already an agent, that agent would have taken the opportunity to prove their loyalty to NERV." Too much risk of dying by friendly fire if they tried to make new friends. "The question is would he have identified them all to us."

"Yes," Shinji said. "Not his department." If he'd hidden that someone was an agent, covered their ass? Since Kaji wasn't in contact with SEELE agents like that, he would have figured it out only from the information NERV and UN agents would have access too. Meaning what he'd figured out, someone else could, and then they'd have wondered how the Legendary Kaji could have missed it.

Even though failing to notice some key detail when flooded with minor information was a perennial problem for intelligence agencies, it was one people outside didn't quite get, and Kaji's reputation made it even less credible. "You were counting on him to leave no stone unturned," he told Misato. So Kaji would have done his best, just as if he wasn't working for SEELE at all. That was what being undercover was about, living the lie, Shinji thought, and then remembered that this was Kaji and wished it was less of a lie.

Not entirely a lie, but in the end, it was SEELE's ideals he'd believed in, wasn't it? Or the same ideal Tabris had bought into, at least. He'd tried to bring about instrumentality and complementation for Misato's sake, but wasn't it kind of insulting that he'd wanted to give her something she didn't want? Was he really that certain he'd known better, that Lilim life wasn't worth living? That Misato 'deserved better' when she didn't want anything else and he should have known that?

Love… didn't always make people do the right thing. Yet "He'd have hung them out to dry in order to stay with you." That, he could tell Misato and not feel guilty at all, because it was definitely true even if he was trying to reassure her.

Asuka snorted and said, "Of course!" and Shinji was grateful to her for keeping there from being a moment.

The other bad news, that should actually be news this time. "Remember how they're not letting us put Kyoko or Naoko in those spare bodies because of the legal issues with people doing that to clones?" he asked them. "Especially after people found out that was why SEELE-funded research was looking into cloning tech to begin with? Someone's pulled it off."

The professor adjusted his glasses. "Someone in SEELE?" Someone Tabris hadn't eliminated in that purge?

"He said he's met someone that… was suspicious for some other reason, but they're too old to have an Armisaelim soul, except they do. And a Lilim soul. It took him awhile to spot the Armisaelim one: he doesn't think it's ever been in control of that body." A baby, possessed before it was born. "That can't be the technology Gendo Ikari developed: they were going for empty vessels, and there's no reason someone would summon an Armisaelim soul into a clone they were planning to give to someone else if they didn't have to." Imagine the client's reaction if they found out they'd been put in with an 'abomination.'

"Actually," Ritsuko corrected him, "You can't keep them out. Not out of Lilim bodies, at least: bodies based on Adam and Lilith's flesh remain empty by default because they're still part of the progenitors. There already is at least an echo of a soul in there. Clone a Lilim, and a soul will have moved into that brain by the time it would be developed enough for an _adult's _personality to be loaded into it."

Everyone but Fuyutsuki stared at her. "That doesn't leave this room," she said quickly. "Can you imagine the panic if people realized there were clouds of Armisaelim souls hanging about, just waiting for something to possess? That's how it worked for Lilim, too." Before Lilith ran out.

Fuyutsuki sighed, as relieved as he was that Naoko Akagi wouldn't be inhabiting a body quite literally young enough to be his granddaughter, since the body itself was even younger than it looked. "I'm worried that the ethics of cloning will be thrown out the window soon, in the name of human survival. When the children whose bodies they'll be taking over won't be Lilim." And therefore not human, in the eyes of far too many.

"Empty bodies can be made," Ritsuko reminded them, "they'd just have to be at least half based on Adam or Lilith's DNA. Or Armisael's. The trouble is that the original soul still has at least some connection to those clones," based on Rei, "and the stronger soul could displace the weaker one, while the memories would remain stored in the brain." A recipe for paranoia if ever there was one. "If SEELE really was hiding the truth from Tabris, I don't think they would have experimented with Adam-based bodies, and Rei is on our side." They wouldn't have wanted all that information in their valuable little heads in Tabris' hands or the UN's. "Of course there's one of the ways your boyfriend recruits for SEELE." Those pale hands were a fountain of youth. "But the UN has decided that's even worse." One thing to steal bodies from an abomination: to hand yourself over to it willingly?

"He could grant immortality, the same kind he has, too," Shinji said quietly, because it should be said but it still felt wrong to say it, or should it be wrong that it was wrong? People living forever should be great, but he knew his family… They wouldn't want Tabris encroaching on them, or him, even to make them immortal, so he shouldn't even think of it as an option for them, much less want them to do it. But now that the idea had occurred to him… "The healing factor."

"Almost the same kind he has," Misato corrected him. "As long as he'd let them kill themselves." Which Tabris supposedly couldn't. "What he offered you, some kind of symbiosis," leaving parts of himself behind, to watch over Shinji?

"You don't have to say it, Misato. It's not going to happen. He was just upset," Shinji almost pleaded, because something like that… They would _have _to view him as just Tabris' puppet if it happened, so it had to sound like Tabris saying he wanted to turn Shinji into his puppet, spy on him all the time, and it wasn't like that. "Scared for me."

Misato looked away a little: unfair of Shinji to look at her with such pitiful blue eyes. "Just… tell me he hasn't done that to anyone."

"I don't know if he's done it over the long term," Ritsuko said, "but he was 'kind enough' to give the pilot and pilot-dependant he healed _very _full disclosure. Scanning is one thing, but Refuge's hospital acquired quite a few experts on retroviral therapy, and medical nanite theorists, among other things. Most of his healing seems to involve supplementing the patient's immune system at a minimum, if not building them new cells himself. From the prospectus of the terraforming experiment, he can use broadcast signals to make LCL form into various molecules and collections of molecules, but not beyond a certain level of complexity, at least so far. He'll have to encroach on the central area to create actual living organisms."

"A frightening thought," the professor agreed, although it wasn't news to him. "Even for those of us who have spent years considering the Rapture and his combat capabilities in detail. He's confined his power to the tactical level as Tabris, never doing anything on this scale." Not affecting more than a battlefield, while Adam's blast had affected the entire planet in multiple ways, including the climate change. "He's already done this to about a seventh of the Indian subcontinent, although supposedly he's withdrawn himself from the area afterwards." If he hadn't? If his human body really was only the tip of the iceberg? "But even the central area of the African trial is… sizeable." He drank the last dregs of his tea. "We'll see what this does to his attempt to be underestimated, but," he said, easing back in his chair a little. "I'm sure it will be stage-managed well enough."

Tabris granting life to part of the earth Adam and the Dead Sea had stolen it from. The significance of that, in front of UN observers and with the UN recording it? It was such fantastic stuff, public relations or propaganda-wise, that every radical group in the world had to be frothing at the mouth for an opportunity to ruin it. Even NERV's Intelligence had been reduced to a skeleton crew, the UN conscripting practically everyone half-competent and quite a lot who weren't to bring down the amazingly elaborate plans various groups were trying to employ.

"Has anything topped the llamas?" Commander Fuyutsuki wondered aloud, which would have caused confusion if _everyone _hadn't heard about the llama plot. "_Could _anything top the llamas?"

"That would be hard," Shinji agreed. On top of how elaborate the plot was, the llama was so emblematic because part of the _Andes _had survived, still fertile. In South America. Wrong continent. "I'm sure someone will, though." If Kaworu was here he'd agree, Lilim ingenuity being what it was. Lilim ingenuity _and _stupidity, Shinji would add.

"Damn right," Asuka said, more because people were that stupid than because people were that ingenious.

"I heard that it _was _a stupid idea: they were brainstorming and someone had watched some old movie. Someone in command was stupid enough to say 'it's stupid enough to work.'" Misato laughed. "So what does he want us to do about NERV England?"

"Something?" Shinji shrugged. "I think he's worried about the experiment. If they'd do something like that to the Armisaelim on their own initiative…"

"He wants us to scoop them up before they tamper with the experiment and make his grand gesture look bad. _Now _of all times, he tells us…" Misato scowled. "It sounds like they went against orders and he's hanging them out to dry." As revenge for those kids, too.

"If they'd do that to the Armisaelim, they're not on his side. He's had to enter UN territory a lot to get them out," Shinji reminded her. "When he's trying to be on good behavior."

"He wouldn't put kids in danger." Misato didn't think that little of him. Or from that half-smile, had she used that against him?

"They're loyal to the old SEELE, not to him," Shinji reminded them. Not that these people cared about disloyalty to Tabris, but anyone who still tried to serve those old bastards… "If Refuge's researchers aren't sending them new information for us, why would we want to keep vipers like that even in _that _branch?" NERV England was by far the less prestigious surviving branch of NERV, even if it hadn't been the dumping ground. That was the branch which blew up in the S2 engine experiment. In hindsight, putting all the incompetent political appointees and the idiots who thought about more power instead of the realities of fighting abominations _without destroying the planet they were trying to save _in one place was kind of a bad idea.

They just couldn't keep them in NERV Japan or NERV Germany, not when there was _important _stuff happening in those branches, and NERV England had the 'boring' job of actually running experiments and collecting data on things that were important, just not big and showy. 'Infinite energy' was the kind of thing that sounded really impressive, and something that would give a big advantage to any country that got it first… as if the UN would let that happen.

"So," Fuyutsuki concluded, "It sounds like we'd better have Hyuga reel them in before they put whatever plans they undoubtedly have to sabotage the experimental data over the long term into action." Tabris was already building the cell walls, but damaging them before he left would be too obvious. He'd check. The UN would be going over them, for that matter: the entire point was studying Tabris' methods. "Most of them should be out of NERV England: that should make it easier to check to see if they have anything to do with this clone Tabris has wandering around without them destroying the data in time."

Shinji nodded his thanks. "I'll give you the letter for Hyuga." For analysts to go over. Just like they must have gone over all of Kaworu's letters to Shinji, those he sent through the embassy after he was revealed as Tabris.

He wondered what they thought about Kaworu, based on them. He wondered what they'd thought of the sheet music.

"Now that that's settled for now, Misato?" her step-father prompted her.

Misato gripped her beer to steady herself. "All of you know by now about my father cheating on my mother with Great Cthulhu." Putting his seed into an abomination. "And Kyoko deciding to do some mad science while she was on a depressive jag." After her husband left, Kyoko Sohryu had gone through a _very _bad patch.

It was plastered all over the news both before and after she went into the Eva, as people debated the consequences of having a _second _potential madwoman in one of those things. Yui Ikari's body hadn't been recovered from Unit 01's contact experiment: Kyoko Sohryu's shell was, thanks to proper precautions (Yui just hadn't wanted anyone to see 'her' like that).

Asuka made a loud "Ahem," but there was only her usual anger in it, no real offense. A certain level of madness was expected of genius.

Shinji was glad Asuka wasn't miserable about being related to the prophet, but when he thought about it having a regeneration factor _was_ pretty useful, and there was kind of a cachet to being a 'supersoldier.' Asuka's mother was also a genius, so who knew what effect the prophet's genes had on Asuka's fairly astounding learning speed.

They had reports on Tabris' development. They weren't trustworthy at all since they were actually officially released by SEELE, but they _had _them, and they claimed that Kaworu was absolutely brilliant, had learned dozens of languages weeks after being allowed out of the lab, often teaching himself since he'd been kept in some of SEELE's treasure caches, with caretakers that were trying to give him something to do.

SEELE angled it more as 'because he's an angel' than because he was a genius. Shinji didn't consider Kaworu quite as astoundingly smart as Asuka, but that was because in some areas he was kind of slow.

Now that Shinji thought about it, most of those areas had to do either with people or with things SEELE hadn't wanted him to think. People were hard, especially for someone who did think a little differently from everything else, and if Keel had someone brilliant on his hands… Well, giving them false answers was the only way to keep them from asking the right questions.

Everyone knew that Asuka was pure brilliant, but that was part of her legend as an Eva pilot. Completing university that young was just the kind of thing that kind of mythic hero did. It was almost as though people thought she was that brilliant because she was one of the chosen children, instead of the other way around.

When he thought of who was smarter, Asuka or Kaworu, his first guess was Asuka, definitely Asuka, but… It wasn't as though Asuka was that great with people either. It wasn't as though she'd _wanted _to drive him up the wall hard enough he kicked her out of his music room, it was like she hadn't known how to stop herself from needling at him, and needling at him, until he couldn't take it anymore.

"So?" Was Ritsuko's response, but then she'd known before anyone else here, about both Misato and Asuka. "Were you expecting us to care?"

"Are you really going to blame your father, Misato?" was what Kozo asked, looking at her seriously over another cup of tea that Asuka had been nice enough to pour for him while she got herself more coffee. They really _could _grow up.

Perhaps he should look into adopting some more. It wasn't so much that they made him feel young as they made him realize how wonderful it was to be old, and to have already gotten a PhD from the school of hard knocks and heartbreak. The greatest thing about getting old was that stuff bothered him less. After having lived through it once, even the risk of another apocalypse had a more than a little tinge of 'been there, done that, it's survivable and I'll know what I'm doing this time,' to it.

Shinji would have looked away until he composed his thoughts: Misato grimaced but met his eyes. "I was joking… but not entirely," she admitted. "Tabris blames him."

"So you're willing to admit that it's unfair of you to blame him for everything that's wrong with your life solely to spite Tabris now?" he wondered. "I'm not objecting," he told her when she rolled her eyes at him, finding himself reminded of her teenage self. That was probably deliberate on her part. "But I'm concerned about _you_." Misato and her feelings, not the abomination and his.

"I think… he must have been under a lot of pressure. Second Impact had to be triggered to stop Adam from waking up when the stars aligned," the joke couldn't bring a smile to her lips as she looked down at her sausages. "But SEELE wouldn't let him warn anyone, and if they really were holding me hostage, and I didn't even _know_… I blamed him for bringing me along, but if he didn't have a choice… It might even have been the only way to keep my mother from being dragged into it. Not that that worked." Once Misato was broken out by UN forces after Fuyutsuki exposed SEELE, her mother was never seen again. Since she had the capacity to be the First Child, had SEELE wanted to keep the UN from having an Eva and a pilot when they were establishing Refuge? Or had they already taken her, to make her into an Eva's core? Was there a container of LCL somewhere with her mother's soul trapped inside it, just as mad from the isolation as Misato used to be? Or had it been smashed open? Or had she just been killed, and her body tossed into the Dead Sea? "I wish he'd gotten in the capsule with me. I wish he _could _have gotten in the capsule with me, without SEELE killing both of us when we were found. I want to blame him for not saving himself because I wish he could have been saved. But, if it was me and one of the kids… I want to think I'd find a better way of putting one in SEELE's eye than _that_," than being some percent responsible for how Tabris had turned out, "but I don't know what else he could have done. At least I know a little more now."

About what happened. About her father's final days, what he'd done and why he'd done it.

"I never met Dr. Katsuragi," Professor Fuyutsuki said. "I followed news of the expedition, of course, but…" He hadn't started to realize just how odd it was until he met a certain student of his after years of silence. "If I was Kaji, I would probably say that what he did took balls. I'm not, so what I will say is that we're probably fortunate it turned out this way. You're a good woman, Misato." He couldn't help but think that any redeeming qualities Tabris had might have something to do with his relation to her.

Shinji groaned, putting his head down on the table. Fortunately he hadn't gotten a plate yet.

"Only figuring it out now, lover boy?" Asuka asked archly. Her cough sounded entirely fake and eighty percent like the words Oedipus Complex. "Or do you even know what that means? How about Sister Complex? You were crawling into Misato's bed, and now you're in her brother's."

"Asuka." Misato said

Asuka looked prepared to grumble but after thinking about it a moment said, "Sorry." Cough you siscon cough.

Shinji suddenly found himself laughing. "He's nothing like my biological mother," he finally managed to force out, "so it could have been a lot worse." They were just teasing him, but that they were even admitting that Kaworu was like Misato? And it was just teasing. They really didn't mind that he loved Kaworu.

He really did have the best family.

"Speaking of which, how's Rei?" Misato asked Ritsuko.

Speaking of Oedipus Complexes? Asuka and Shinji both groaned. "You people are crazy and I should have stayed in Germany," the redhead declared, not for the first time. A pity Lilith hadn't had the good taste to land there.

"Still blaming herself. I'm thinking of staging an intervention tomorrow. With plastic explosives." To remove the security lock and its attached door. Ritsuko was the one who had handled them for Kaji, when they broke into SEELE facilities. "I told her there was going to be a family breakfast." She should have dragged herself out for that, no matter what. Enough was enough.

"She hasn't opened the door at all?" Shinji asked worriedly. "Should I come with you?"

"Only once, when she ran out of Reyva food. She managed to fiddle with the security cameras well enough to keep Naoko from noticing until she'd brought back enough she must have made three trips _and _broken one of the vending machines to stock up on food for herself." Ritsuko sounded mostly proud.

"The vending machine was Kensuke," Shinji told her. "He said he was dared, but come to think of it, he didn't say who dared him." Or had it even been a dare?

Maybe she'd only made two trips carrying the Reyva food, if she'd run into someone waiting around for test results on her way back with the first load… but would she have trusted herself around Kensuke, if she was still avoiding her mother? Well, they were both smart: they could have stayed a hall's distance apart or something.

Shinji hoped that was what had happened.

"Hikari'll get the details out of him," Asuka said, nodding. "And it's your stupid fault she's like this, so go visit her. She might be naturally blue, but there _are _limits."

"I should have realized she never eats when she's like this." Ritsuko had assumed that Rei getting food for herself was a good sign. It should have meant she was starting to cheer up, but if someone had thought to make sure she got food… the beta-type pilots would have heard that Rei was locking herself up, especially when Kensuke and Touji, along with Hikari, were still staying at the manor. Hmm. According to Misato, Aida was a natural Quartermaster, and making sure her daughter was supplied? If Rei ever moved out, she _could _use a good househusband to manage things while she continued her research, especially once the UN cleared her to learn terraforming. The trouble was this involved tapping her abomination instincts, and even if Lilith was hopefully on her children's side… As much as Ritsuko hoped more information on the abominations was buried somewhere Rei could access it, she didn't want her daughter to lose herself in some older consciousness.

If it was simply a matter of the world being safe from Rei, then Ritsuko would have shoved it through the UN committee already. Were they assuming that was why she hadn't, why she wasn't being her typical aggressive self where Rei was concerned?

If they dared to doubt Rei even for a second, if they thought she was scared _of _her daughter instead of scared _for _her…

The African experiment now. Putting the fear of the Akagi name back into a certain subcommittee later.


	42. With These Hands, With This Soul

It was something of a relief that his hair was long enough to be tied back now. He had enough practice forming the barrier walls that it was more practical to fly instead of walk or run as he shaped them, crystal-clear walls a good four meters high and two across rising out of the ground beneath them. Two meters was what he used in India, except on the coasts where the waves would help the LCL batter them down: the UN had asked why they weren't thicker, and he'd reminded them that the goal was to remove all the LCL before enough years passed that the walls could be broken down.

Surrounded by multiple UN helicopters (generally four to seven: they were rotating in and out), the wild gusts of wind created by their rotors would have put hair and robes into chaos unless he shielded himself with his AT field if he hadn't tied his hair back and insisted on pulling an older outfit out from the back of the closet, what he'd worn when he'd insisted on spending days working alongside Refuge's various work crews.

It was certainly much less fun to operate the drills that dug the cities deep if one had to do it every day, and harvesting crops was exhausting for people whose muscles did produce fatigue poisons, but for him those days were more like holidays, and he wanted to know what it was like for the Lilim under his protection. Under his rule, now.

Wearing something less like a god performing miracles and more like a workman being about his work had been commented on by the Lilim, of course. Some footage from Refuge had been cleared for airing in the UN, and NERV even released Hyuga to give a press conference in Tokyo-2 on what the Intelligence Division thought of Tabris and his work ethic, how it compared to the official line in Refuge's broadcasts and such. The curiosity of the Lilim… As much as Aoba might mutter about disrespect, it was nice that they were curious about him instead of thinking that they already understood him. Even though he knew Shinji didn't like their relationship being gossiped about, the fact that the Lilim were gossiping about it, arguing about it, instead of just assuming that it had to be fake, that he couldn't love Shinji was hopeful.

Just forming the walls was rather easy, or at least repetitive, so it was hard not to keep his mind from wandering. If this was back in India he might have turned over, flown along with his back to the earth in order to look at the clouds, but in the eyes of the Lilim natural things (birds, planes) couldn't fly like that, and it would seem like showing off at best.

He tried not to glance over at the helicopters too much, since it might bother them. He remembered flying up to sit on or hang off of helicopters as a child. Jets were fun to play tag with (well, he'd tag them, they'd try to hit him with missiles), but since helicopters weren't going as fast it seemed more appropriate to hover up in front of them, or to the sides if it was a troop transport, and try to say hello. They were flying, like him! Just like him, so maybe these Lilim wouldn't be afraid?

But no, people in UN helicopters had never wanted to be friends, and perhaps if he increased his pace a bit he'd have to focus too hard on getting the walls formed both quickly and solidly for his mind to drift in such depressing directions. Seeing omens, now? These helicopters were carrying cameras instead of guns – he didn't doubt they were carrying guns, but they were probably more to discourage saboteurs than on the off-chance they could succeed in killing him. Probably.

NERV fighting angels that weren't him had given the UN a lot more data on abomination capabilities. If armament not backed by an AT field didn't work on even the weakest of the abominations?

But even after he'd spent years fighting them to protect Refuge, even when they should have known it wouldn't work, often they would still shoot at him. To express their desire to kill him, more than anything.

He'd told himself those bullets didn't hurt, not at all, and it was selfish to feel hurt when there were people who really were being injured and killed by those bullets, when he wasn't there to take those blows and protect his people, but the hatred behind them?

It hurt. So much pain, and he wished Shinji was here, to hold him and stroke his hair, place kisses on his brow. Remind him that Shinji didn't hate him, that Shinji wanted him to live.

He knew better than to show that pain, not with cameras on him. His face was a mask of concentration (and make-up, because he was on camera and Lilim wore it then too), to show that he was taking the work of restoring this world seriously. And he was.

But perhaps enough of him was still a Lilim that he was wondering _how _much further? How many more kilometers until he could take a break, or better yet be done for the day?

If only Shinji was allowed internet or phone access. They could have been texting back and forth. Tabris could have confessed that he was _bored_ and almost tempted to hitch a ride on one of the helicopters' landing gear just for a change of pace, and Shinji might have laughed and suggested that Tabris do what Shinji did and bring a music player and some headphones. It wasn't as though Tabris couldn't hook up to satellite radio broadcasts, but it wasn't quite the same thing.

Perhaps… perhaps he could even ask to borrow Shinji's music player? Or Shinji might loan it to him. So Tabris had something to fiddle with, on the pretext of changing the song. Something to hold, and think of Shinji, and why he was doing this. Not for Shinji specifically, but for the Lilim. To fix their broken planet. To maybe earn at least some trust, at least some friendliness, so perhaps… Perhaps they would let him be with Shinji, among other things.

At least these hexagons were smaller than the ones in India: he would be done with the walls by noon today, still on schedule to be done within the week. The walls were more complex than the 'petri dish' matter, since he wanted them to be solid enough to do a decent job resisting LCL. The UN would have jets pacing him while he did that part of the job, and he'd need to change into another outfit. Even this one, with its loose pants, had fabric that would flap around distractingly at those speeds.

Perhaps the UN's viewers might be bored enough by Day 3 that they'd understand it if he blew off some steam by doing a few loops and such. He _was _a teenager, after all.

They would be asking him about the process when he landed. Was he tired (hoping he was tired, that he had limits). Perhaps it might be alright to confess that it was very repetitive and he was glad this stage was over. He didn't want to seem like he didn't take Second Impact or the threat of the Dead Sea (Dead Earth, here) seriously, but they _were _going to ask how he felt and he did have feelings.

He was almost tempted to ask Misato.

He was interested in what Ritsuko Akagi would think of this, actually. Adam's soul was intended to do this kind of work, so why was he finding himself _bored out of his Lilim skull_? Because he had a Lilim mind, the Fruit of Wisdom? Because this kind of thing was meant to take place all at once, in a climactic and cataclysmic Impact, instead of kilometer by kilometer, a slow process of repair that would take years when Adam and Lilith were meant to return to sleep after completing their work?

Drat, he'd thought of sleep.

He was _very _tempted to yawn. But that would be immature and while he might still be fifteen, he had a country to lead and a reputation to salvage. There were Lilim who were eager to pounce on every mistake he made, anything that could be taken the wrong way, and having so much footage of him released had given them a lot of material to work with. Even though he hoped that familiarity might breed, well, not contempt, but familiarity.

Tabris tried not to yield to the temptation to check GPS and see how many more kilometers to go.

When he did hook up the last section of wall and land, there was a base camp already established there, at the intersection of two of the walls enclosing the central hexagon and one of the walls radiating out to the other edge and reporters and recorders (NERV and other organizations wanted data just as much as the Lilim public did) arranged around where he was probably expected to land. Yes, definitely so: there was Aoba with a glass of water and a towel.

There had been rainforests in this place, once upon a time, so it wasn't really that surprising that he'd flown through a brief shower. He'd only started to use his AT field once it switched from drizzle to rain, so he was a bit wet. He could have dried himself off: the light of the soul was light, and infrared was a kind of light, but that kind of casual use of his powers? Of several powers at once? It wasn't as though he minded being damp, and warm fluffy towels (it had been sitting out in the sun) were nice things. It was nice to have an excuse to take his hair out of the tie, rub himself down and wrap it around him.

A Lilim would have been sweaty after a day like that, too.

"Thank you," he told Aoba with a grateful smile as he took the cup of water. He might not have yielded to the temptation to contact NERV to ask them to pass messages on to Shinji, but he had messaged Aoba to let him know he'd need the towel as soon as he was clear of the rainstorm and had decided not to dry himself off. If his household staff was here they probably would have been a little insulted he assumed they wouldn't anticipate his needs, but they were back in Refuge.

"Thank your chamberlain," he was told, since, "he's the one who packed them."

Oh, he realized. This was one of his own towels, not the UN military issue the entire camp had to be using, except for some of the reporters. So it must have been brought here long before the storm, forget when it occurred to Tabris to ask for one. Even the staff from Refuge stationed here instead of going back through Dirac Space with him at night needed him to open a portal for them to bring anything through from home.

"I owe him an apology," Tabris knew. He'd thought there were really too many boxes and boxes of things with his household seal being brought through. It was a little embarrassing, excessive, that they thought he'd need that much just for day trips, that he couldn't manage 'roughing it' for sixteen hours at a stretch, at most . It wasn't as though he was a delicate creature: he didn't even need sunscreen.

He'd come very close to saying something about it, and for those who had studied him and his needs his disapproval was probably obvious. He didn't want the Lilim to think… Well, he _was _being pampered while there were people on this world who had trouble finding food. The same was true of the rulers of the UN states. But the Lilim were going to make much more of an issue of it when it was him.

"From what I hear, he had to be argued out of sending a piano," Aoba confided in a low voice that they still knew was probably picked up by the camera equipment, if not the Lilim listeners.

"Thank goodness he was," Tabris murmured back. "I may have cleared out the LCL for a ways around this camp already, but that piano…" was a wonderful instrument, and to think of it being ruined by LCL…

"I said _a _piano, not your piano." Although both of them would be Tabris' property, certainly_._

Still, "Thank goodness. I should have known he wouldn't send that one. But why was a piano even considered? This isn't a recital." As much as he enjoyed performing.

Did Shinji miss it too? Would it ever be possible to just be part of a group of musicians again, swept up in someone else's performance instead of its centerpieces? He hated the thought of people feeling nervous because he was there, when performances could make people so nervous as it was.

"It isn't a hot spring, either," Aoba reminded him with a meaningful glance at the towel. Someone who was older when Second Impact happened would have said 'this isn't a beach trip,' but no one brought towels to the beach anymore.

Tabris supposed practicing the piano (even if just for a half, a quarter hour) and baths (involving towels) were both part of his daily routine, so it was reasonable for it to occur to someone whose actual job description was to anticipate all of Tabris' needs, but it still felt a little excessive. He knew Shinji's staff wasn't like this: that household had to worry more about security than Tabris' did, so having helpful people underfoot all the time was a security breech waiting to happen instead of actually rather nice. To have Lilim that cared about his well-being, even if they didn't see themselves as his equals.

Shinji and Tabris being given privacy made sense, but even when it was just Kaworu visiting, Shinji had gotten up to get his own water, snacks and other odds and ends a lot, instead of having food brought to him even outside the music room.

It wasn't 'how the other half lived' when NERV's commander had a quite nice salary, and then there was Misato's income, Ritsuko's and Kaji's as well. Naoko Akagi and Kyoko Sohryu were paid for their work as scientists if not as Evas (since paying Yui Ikari wasn't going to happen), but since their legal rights to do things like own property were technically nonexistent the money went into trust accounts for Rei and Asuka. The UN was aware that household was essential to the functioning of NERV, and thus their defense against the abominations.

Tabris didn't know if he qualified as spoiled or not. He knew now that SEELE had _tried _to spoil him, after he was taken from the lab. Try to keep him content in a succession of gilded cages, so he wouldn't decide to go to new places on his own after being introduced to the concept that going to new places was possible. After he was chosen as Refuge's figurehead, they had wanted to both let his people venerate him, which included treating him the way a god should be treated, and make sure he was dedicated to his work. In Keel's mind Tabris was far from spoiled, but then for all his wealth and selfishness Keel hadn't considered himself spoiled, either.

Perhaps he should try to live a more Spartan existence, even though he'd have another fight with his people on his hands if he tried, but the warmth of this towel, the concern for him that was why it was here to begin with… It wasn't Shinji, but it was all he had until he met the other boy.

This and the hope of complementation and instrumentality. The knowledge that his people cared for him because he was the vessel that would grant them their wishes. It was his wish as well, to be one with them, to be understood and liked. Wanted for himself.

He was no genie. He'd failed, he was incapable of doing what was needed, and yet they still did things like this.

He felt the ache in his chest, and if he wasn't used to confining it there, he might have needed to wipe his face again with that towel before turning to face the audience. And smiling, because he adored the Lilim, he truly did. How could he not? The idea that Lilith and her children, Adam and hers were destined to be enemies: that was one of the few points of SEELE's dogma he had never given a moment's credence.

Adam might be enraged by what was done to her, and her children not wise enough to know what they destroyed, but so many Lilim were so kind to him, even knowing what he was. Even placing their own lives at risk to protect him! As for him, how could he not adore the people that brought forth Shinji?

…the specific two people who brought Shinji into the world aside.

"The walls are complete," he told them. "So I'll begin work on the areas inside the walls. I'll be transforming the LCL into an energy-rich organic material that can be broken down by ordinary living organisms, like the gel in a petri dish. That should be done by the end of tomorrow." They'd asked questions at the walls during the commencement meeting yesterday morning, when the project officially started, and also during the lunch break yesterday and after he finished. He was expecting perhaps one or two more questions about how he was done with that, and then the next stage. It would have seemed like a waste of time, since mostly he was repeating things that the UN representatives would have been going over with these people all day, but they wanted to hear these things from him, were studying him as much as his process and his work, and he really didn't mind that. He did remind them that, "I'm sure the UN scientific and other representatives would be happy to go over this with you, but do you have any questions before I get changed?"

Actually, he had one himself. The sun was high overhead, and this place must have been hot even before the Eternal Summer began. "Since there's going to be an hour's delay, would it be possible to take this inside? I can manage heat and cold, but it's still uncomfortable out here." For Lilim, vulnerable to heatstroke.

"Getting changed?" Someone with a NERV insignia asked him. NERV Germany, he saw. He also saw their raised eyebrow. So he had a reputation for vanity now? Unnecessary costume changes? Well, there were certainly worse reputations to have. He wouldn't even mind being considered foppish, since that tended to mean harmless, and he meant no harm to the Lilim.

But in this case, there was a practical reason. "It's simpler to create that material than to create and check the walls, so I'll be moving faster. The hour's delay is because the UN will be having jets accompany me for this stage." They would be transferring equipment over from the helicopters. "I may break the sound barrier, especially when I'm going back to check to make sure that I did get all the LCL. I can't wear something this loose," he said, shaking his arm to show them the sleeve. "At that kind of speed."

Well, he could use his AT field to trap a pocket of air moving at the same velocity he was with him, and he had practiced that a few times, but that would be showing off.

"So I'll be wearing a flight suit," he told them.

That wasn't what Shinji had called it, when they talked about this project. "You're going to be wearing that? A plugsuit?"

Seeing Shinji's shock be replaced by a blush as he looked at the suit on its hanger, Tabris remembered what Shinji had said, about how plugsuits were fetish gear. "Would you like me to try it on for you?" he asked.

Shinji shook his head, but the blush was still here. "Everyone will be comparing it to a plugsuit. Weren't you going to be an Eva pilot, in SEELE's scenario?"

Tabris nodded.

"They'll wonder what you mean by it," Shinji knew.

"Do you think I shouldn't wear it?" Tabris asked, looking at the suit. It was certainly sleek and streamlined, but he didn't think it was risqué. His staff would never dress him in something indecent, although it was possible, "They might not how know how the UN perceives plugsuit-like clothing." Since Misato was far from a hero in Refuge's eyes.

"I, um… Maybe you should try it on?" Shinji asked. "As long as it's not too much like any of ours…" Maybe it would be okay.

Impossible not to think of Shinji running his hands over him the first time he wore this suit as he put the sleek black fabric on now and stepped out into the staging area, tying back his hair and lowering the goggles. His own PR staff had gone over this with him: of course the UN analysts would be aware that his abandonment of formal robes, of the trappings of a god prince (aside from during the opening ceremonies, dinners and such) was itself a tactic. To convey dedication to the task at hand, to seem more human. To need to sacrifice appearance for practicality. To be a practical person. The question was whether or not they would perceive it as deception.

Which it was, a little. Technically, he didn't need the flight suit. But Shinji liked it, and it was nice to think of being a fellow pilot. If only it was safe to be there to support Shinji as he fought the other abominations! Yes, for one of them to merge with him would trigger Third Impact, but the same was true of Rei.

Also there was something to be said for enjoyment, for finding joy in life, and he'd always loved soaring through the air, feeling the force of the wind. Enclosing himself in a bubble of tame air, when he was already bored after only a day and a half of this? Somehow it was far less boring when he worked on India, even though there he didn't have the spectators. So it was less nerve-wracking, so he craved distraction less? He could focus on the task more, instead of being distracted from it and then needing distraction from the distractions of Lilim eyes. The feel of them watching him.

The flight suit was quite plain compared to NERV's plugsuits, and not only because there was no need for that sort of monitoring equipment. The plugsuits were intended to look military, if not outright heroic. The Numbered Series pilots were heroes, were special, after all. This was more like a wetsuit, something people wore to go diving back when there were living organisms to look at under the surface of the water.

It seemed that Shinji was right about how other UN Lilim would react to the suit: he saw several of them swallow and look away after realizing that they were appreciating the form of an abomination, and a fifteen-year-old at that. It was easy to resist the urge to smirk a little at that: he knew he was well-formed by their standards, eyes and skin aside, but it wasn't something he could take credit for. A lot of Lilim perception of physical beauty was based on symmetry and other indicators of health, and of course he was healthy, of course his body had no flaws. He was a Seed of Life, even in this half-Lilim form.

He was used to having his body examined, first in the lab and now by his staff (and by Shinji, but that was a pleasure), but it was entirely different when so many of the eyes were hostile. Before, he would have smiled and told himself that he was unconcerned, but now he let himself be grateful for the robe he was given to wrap around himself until it was time to begin. Strange to feel almost as much relief from various Lilim as he felt from himself: Not only were several of them unhappy to find him attractive, but the robe was much more like something he would wear.

Complying with their idea of him was counterproductive in theory, but it was true that he did like all the beautiful things the Lilim created.

"I should think of India in terms of homes rebuilt, food production, Lilim being able to live out under the sky," thanks to watchful GPS satellites and Cherubim placed throughout India's growing population centers, because Tabris had learned well not to offer the UN targets of opportunity. "Look to the horizon and see blue and green," or brown, but they were working on it. "But," he said, lifting his arm to touch one of the circle sleeves, the embroidery of a lily. "My people keep sending me flowers. From gardens they can plant for themselves now, space and soil they can use to create something beautiful, something that will bring joy to people's hearts instead of only what they need to survive. That kindness, that generosity… That _Wisdom_, to think of things like that, to assign importance to beauty and think of ways to create joy: I love them dearly," he said, and smiled softly at the cameras, hoping the Lilim would choose to broadcast that and it would reach his people at home. Well, if it didn't, then he would tell them himself the next time he addressed Refuge, which would be at the conclusion of this project.

He was editing his draft of that speech when he sensed her approach. Turning towards that direction, his smile became one of delight. "So Rei is coming?" He'd hoped that the UN would end up deciding to send her – wouldn't they want someone capable of monitoring his work? There was only so much their equipment could do – but when they were still upset, and Rei herself was still upset, over what happened to Shinji he hadn't thought it was that likely.

Perhaps he should have been annoyed: it wasn't proper protocol to try to surprise a visiting head of state like this, but it was a pleasant surprise.

"Along with Dr. Akagi," the UN's coordinator said, since the surprise (and their chance to have Rei in range to sense any oddities before Tabris knew she was here and could fix those oddities) was blown.

"Wonderful. I'd be very grateful for any advice they can give me on terraforming: Rei doesn't remember any more than I do, but at least her soul was made for this kind of world," and Lilith had done this once. Adam never had.

"Their plane will arrive fifteen minutes before the start of the next stage."

Perfect. Would they want her to go up with him?

Could he take her flying? Had she ever flown before under her own power? Certainly not where satellites could see her, but perhaps she'd practiced levitating in some secret room in the Geofront, since they knew he was capable of it? That wasn't the same as flying under the open sky, and if he could take her up for the first time, if he could show her how and see that joy on his sister's face?

That was one of the things he'd dreamed of doing with her, before he realized that he couldn't keep her. Couldn't keep her safe.

Even so, it was hard not to laugh with delight at the thought of it.

He surely would have spoiled her, if only he could have kept her by his side.

"I'm tempted to fly up to greet them… Could someone call Dr. Akagi and request permission?" Unless someone higher-ranked from NERV was on that flight (of which there were exactly two people), the head of the Science Department would be in command of a science-related mission.

Rei's adoptive mother.

He had to find some way to thank the woman. He would have considered Dr. Ibuki, except the UN wanted her on quite a lot of counts of 'cyberterrorism' and related 'crimes' (sometimes the UN chose to ignore the fact that they were at war with Refuge and some things were acceptable tactics in warfare, or at least the UN certainly thought so when they used those same tactics every chance they got) and he didn't want to cause any more difficulty for Shinji's family with the UN and its law enforcement than he already was.

Permission was _not _given, since the jet was traveling quite fast and opening up at that altitude would have been hazardous for the Lilim, papers and expensive equipment also on the plane. He'd expected that, really, but while he sat down and composed himself to outward appearances (he had a lot of practice), inside he was almost vibrating with joy and excitement. This would be only the fourth time since he was forced to let them take her away that he'd be able to see her, and the second time was a formal occasion while on the third occasion she'd been merged with Shinji when he spoke to her, and then once everyone was separate again he'd fallen asleep without really speaking to _her_.

But that first time, seeing her desire to be beautiful, to be able to walk among the Lilim: that was his wish as a child, and to be able to grant that wish to someone so like him?

Her smile was beautiful: he wanted to see it again almost as much as he loved Shinji's smile.

She really did look a lot like Shinji, didn't she? He wanted to see both of them smile, and know that he was the cause. Their happiness, like his people's happiness: the thought of it made him overflow with joy, and he hoped so much he would be able to share that joy with her.


End file.
